The Sound Of Silence
by aliasmel1
Summary: Severus Snape has been captured and being held inhumanly against his will by Harry and the Order. Does he possess the charm and wit needed to befriend Hermione Granger and use her for his escape? Unfortunately for him, a deeper friendship forms that he wasn't planning on. Walking the tightrope of good and evil, he ultimately has to choose whose side he is really on, hers or his?
1. Chapter 1

The sound of silence

"Well. Fuck. He paced the room like a caged tiger tormented and taunted. He was stuck. Captured, his wand had been taken and the wards set so heavily in this room that Voldemort himself would have hard work tearing them down and working through them fastidiously.

He sat on the dusty bed; red, threadbare carpet lined the floor of the room. A dusty window covered in cobwebs his only foray into the outside world, he spent many a day staring out of the window at the world outside, unassuming and unnoticed. The situation was hopeless with no chance of looking as if it were to turn around.

Voldemort wouldn't come looking for him, Dumbledore was dead, and Harry Potter assumed he was the one responsible for the great Albus Dumbledore meeting his maker. The truth was, whilst he did die at his hand, he was hardly the murderer that they all made him out to be. Acting on a person's wishes was hardly grounds for being treated like a blood-thirsty brute. But then again, he didn't blame them for thinking and feeling what they did. But Dumbledore wasn't exactly the upstanding pillar or society that they all assumed he was; far from it, actually.

Scrubbing his palms over his eyes he growled low in his throat. Fuck. Shit. Fuck this to hell. Who did Potter and co think they were anyway keeping him locked here in the room, stopping by once a day to drop off food and scurry off without even as much as a sidewards glance? Which suited him just fine, he didn't want to associate with the likes of them right now, anyway.

He gnashed his teeth together in anger and frustration, how could he let this happen. How could this happen? He was careless, slow and had only himself to blame for being caught. Fucking Bellatrix was supposed to back him up. Had she done the task at hand he would be free now. Never rely on anyone, especially a sociopathic wench like her.

He couldn't get the thought of that night three weeks ago out of his mind. He had merely acted on the wishes of Dumbledore and now, he paid the ultimate price. Trapped. Held here for only Merlin would know how long slowly going stir-crazy as the same four walls seemed to close in on him inch by inch, day by day.

The night he had killed Dumbledore he ran. Ran from the school, ran from what he did. He just ran. But Harry fucking Potter had chased him, chased him down like a lion hunting a gazelle. One wrong move and Harry had knocked him to the ground. Bellatrix saw, the fucking slag saw him down, trapped and still fled. Fucking bitch. It was okay for her in Malfoy Manor with every need met living a life of luxury while sucking Voldemort's cock more than likely.

He had been dragged back here, held captive, tortured a little and thrown into this room without a second thought. They tried to extract information out of him, but he wouldn't give it to them. Not now, not ever. Not after this treatment, anyway. And now, he guessed he wasn't of much use to them because he wouldn't talk, and he wouldn't cooperate with them and they really didn't know what else to do with him now.

They wouldn't let him go now, not after leaving him to rot here for weeks on end, they were the vigilantes, not the ministry, they were just as corrupt as he was holding somebody against their will was against the law, no matter how much of a wretched human being they were.

They had yelled at him. Screamed. Berated him. Harry Potter had acted the big macho man and threw a few punches in while screaming about the injustice of him killing a great a man as Dumbledore. Harry looked very much the cat that got the cream when he virtually gloated that he knew Snape was never to be trusted from the beginning. If only the little shit knew the atrocities and the fucking hardships, he had put himself through to save his incompetent ass on many occasions. Prick.

Soft footsteps could be hear padding up the hallway, breath hitched in his throat, these footsteps were different, softer, gentler. They didn't harbour the anger within them that the others had, Harry, Ron, Kingsley and the rest of the order. Was this someone to save him? Someone to help?

The door handle rattled gently, and it sprung open, his shoulders slumped, and he rolled his eyes. Hermione Granger. He had almost forgotten about her. She hadn't really been involved in any of the little torture session he was privy to. In fact, she had just sat in the corner nibbling her lower lip and muttering under her breath that this was a bad idea and although how terrible of a person he was, he was still afforded basic human rights.

"Professor Snape?" She asked gently, looking almost to the floor as he released the breath he was holding.

"Here's your food," She whispered under her breath shooting an unsure, sideways glance at the man she had known for many years but didn't really know him at all. Not even a little bit.

She set it down on the small table in the room and scurried off, giving a backwards glance.

"I'm sorry," she whispered before closing the door, worry lingering just beneath the surface of her eyes.

Well. That was different, never once had Granger been the one to deliver him food. Never ever. And what was she sorry for? The abhorrent meal he was served daily. The putrid room he was held captive in perhaps? Surely, she wasn't sorry for anything, not of something of magnitude, anyway.

He sighed, resigned to the fact he may never, ever be a free man again. He would just have to sit here and wait. Bide his time and hope to the gods above that somehow, somebody came to his rescue. He snorted. As if that would happen. Right now, he was a liability to the Death Eaters and a traitor to the order. He was walking the tightrope of grey because not everything was black or white and he knew nobody would come to save him. No, he was at the mercery of Harry fucking Potter and the order. At the mercy of the do-gooders and the bleeding hearts. He needed a plan, he needed to devise the best plan he could muster up. Yes, that would do.

The cogs of thought ticked over and over in his head. He couldn't escape. Perhaps he could grab one of their wands when they came in, ambush them. That could work, except he was sure they never kept a wand on their person. No, that wouldn't do.

He tapped his bottom lip in deep, uninterrupted thought when a brow raised into his hairline and a smirk crossed his lips. He would befriend the girl, use her to get out and freedom would be his, yes, now that was a master plan if he had ever thought of one. He could be very manipulative when he needed to be especially when it spelled out his freedom.

So, befriend the girl, convince her he was nothing but harmless, plant the seed in her mind for escape, wait till it was her idea, run, and then destroy her. Ok, so maybe he didn't need to do the last bit… But it certainly sounded fun.

**A/N: Just an idea I had kicking around in my head. Because I needed to add yet another story to my workload. Oh well, you only live once, right?!**

**-Aliasmel1**


	2. Chapter 2

The sound of silence was deafening to his ears, slowly sending him mad, playing with his mind and minute by minute driving him a little crazier. There wasn't even as much a tip-toed footstep past his room in twenty-four hours. His stomach the only break in the silent monotony as it protested with hunger.

He laid on the bed, the sagging mattress unkind on his aging back, the bed creaking with even the slightest of movement. The stained ceiling was the only thing of interest to him at the moment. The yellowing peeling paint tainted with a smattering of black mould that assaulted the ceiling. That couldn't be good for him to be breathing in, he thought bitterly to himself as he sat up and looked forlornly out of the filthy, cobweb-covered window, the sun dipping fast behind the horizon, soon to leave him in the pitch black again.

Another day, another day he wasn't rescued. Another day he wasn't even an afterthought to the fucking cunts who were meant to be looking out for him. As usual, they were all for themselves and none for all. Typical.

He needed to devise an in-depth plan to save himself. Of course, he had to save himself. Not only did he have to look out for himself he had saved the hide of Harry Saint Fucking Potter on more than one occasion and look for the little prick had treated him. Pathetic.

Fuck. Now he had soured his mood, not that it could probably become any sourer than what it already was. He was being held captive by a group that included a trio of three children, two of who's ineptitude baffled him even after all these years and the third, much too smart for her own good.

He was bored out of his mind, already tearing through every square inch of the room, inspecting, criticizing and consuming the artefacts that he had found. Mentally berating the fact that Sirius Black was just as inept as his godson when he chanced upon an old assignment from Hogwarts pushed into the corner in a tattered box falling to pieces. How to brew draught of living death.

He had snorted at that one. The dumb shit had emphasised the use of unicorn blood and a fairy wing infusion. The potion required neither of those and if he had actually been tasked to brew such a potion, the poor cunt who consumed it would have been dead in a heartbeat. It was a shame it was actually a crime to force students to consume the potions they fucked up. It would sure rid the world of the dumb and the incompetent.

The first few days that he had been locked in here were interesting but now all he had left were a few tattered and torn books to bide his time and he wasn't all that interested in reading right now. He wanted his wand back, he wanted to be out doing things. The only silver lining to this shit cloud was the fact that he didn't have to please an overlord who didn't give two fucks about anyone but himself. A true sociopath in every form of the word.

He didn't have to pretend to be someone he wasn't right now when he was alone in here. He didn't have to play two sides and hope he came out trumps above them both. He could just switch his brain off, rest and relax. It was kind of nice for a change.

There were no snotty nosed little crotch nuggets running around aiming to ruin his day, there were no breaking up fights between Potter and Draco fucking Malfoy. Someday he was sure Draco went out of his way to start an argument with Potter just so he could linger around him a little longer. If he didn't know any better, he would almost say he could have felt the palpable sexual tension between the two young boys as they verbally and sometimes magically tore shreds off one another.

Soft footfalls walking up the creaking steps roused him from his thoughts. Bated breath waiting to see if they were coming for him. The person doing the stepping seemed hesitant, perhaps worried by something.

The door slowly opened and in stepped just the girl he wanted.

She opened the door and shut it gently behind her, all the while precariously holding a platter in her hand that had his daily rations upon it.

"Sorry, it's a bit late, Professor Snape."

She placed the platter on the small table she had set it on the day before.

Hooded eyes watched her with deep regard as she stood, waiting.

"What are you waiting for? A tip? I'm sorry but due to the circumstances, I am unable to provide one," He snarled out, harshly.

She blushed. "Sorry."

"And you don't have to call me Professor Snape, Miss Granger. I am no longer your professor… Obviously."

"Well, then you don't have to call me Miss Granger… Obviously," She mimicked him right down to the exact snark in the obviously he had added.

"What would you rather be called then? Know-it-all? Harry Potters plaything?" He questioned with the utmost sincerity in his voice.

"Hermione is fine," She said flatly. "And I am not Harry Potters 'plaything', I am not any bodies plaything." She took a few steps closer into the room.

"My apologies, Hermione." Her name liked acid on his tongue. "I was under the impression there was something going on between you and him." He lied. He just wanted to build a rapport with her, so any conversation was a good conversation.

"Who told you that?" She asked defensively, her face instantly dropping.

"Nobody. Just me making an observation from the outside." He shrugged and pulling himself up into a sitting position, the old bed creaking with every shift of his body upon it.

"So no one has said anything about Harry and me?" She asked nervously.

He shook his head no. "No. Why should they if there is nothing going on?"

He cocked an eyebrow, watching her shift from foot to foot on the spot. Nervousness coursing through her body so heavily he could almost smell it.

"No reason." Her features were stoic. Her shoulders rising in a small shrug.

Silence. Awkward silence.

"Are you cold?" It's a bit chilly in here. And dark."

"Great observational skills." He hissed bitterly, almost rolling his eyes.

"Let me fix that." She pulled her wand from her back pocket.

He watched her wand, fixated on it. He wanted to reach for it. He wanted to pluck it from her hand, hold it against her temple and unleash the killing curse on her and run. That would be the easiest thing to do right now. Not befriend a little swot he could hardly stand being around at the best of times.

He fingers twitched as his wicked mind raced at a hundred miles an hour. He wanted to do it; he really did. He willed himself to, he wanted to move, he wanted to lunge at her, but his body sat on the bed, stock still. He morally couldn't do it. Since when did he obtain a well fucking calibrated moral compass?

A few lazy flicks and swishes of her wand had the room at a decent temperature for the first time since he has been here and a few long forgotten and dusty candles sitting on a shelf had flicked to life, lighting the entire room.

"That's better." A meek smile passed her lips. It was the least she could do for him.

"Thank you," he said with sincerity. Actual sincerity.

"I'm sorry. Please don't tar me with the same brush as the others. I don't want to hold you captive here, I want nothing to do with it. Everyone has gone and left me here for a few days… I wasn't going to just go and leave you here. Kreacher is about a useful as a waterproof teabag so I couldn't leave it up to him to ensure you were ok. Harry and the order wouldn't let you go." She bit her bottom lip hard.

"I don't need a keeper, Hermione. While your actions are admirable, don't feel you have to hang around for me. The world will still keep spinning whether I am but a rotting corpse in here."

She looked horrified. "I couldn't do that. Not to you, not to anyone."

"Voldemort?" He questioned.

She thought for a moment with deep regard. "Perhaps we all have our limits. I could easily walk away and leave him locked up here to die."

"You are only human."

She nodded gently. "I best be off. "

"Thank you, Hermione." He nodded curtly as she left the room.

Getting on a first name basis so she thought of him as more than a murderous heathen; complete. The rest would come easier now.


	3. Chapter 3

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your premature visit on the otherwise miserable and uninteresting day? The day is young and my rations aren't due to be served for another eight hours or so," He drawled smoothly from the bad, ankles crossed over lazily, staring at the mouldy ceiling, a pastime of his now that he had to endure day in and day out being held captive in this cesspool masqueraded as the noble house of black. It was about a noble as his ass.

"If you don't want the company…" Hermione made a grab for the door handle to leave.

"Bored, are we?" He asked with an upward inflection in a hope to change her mind without actually suggesting it. He may be bored but he wasn't going to beg for the displeasure of her company.

"Just a little. Sitting down there staring at the same four walls all alone with nothing but a ticking clock and muttering house elf is enough to push anyone off the edge of sanity." She walked across the room towards the bed and sat down on the edge. The ancient bed groaned loudly under the added weight.

"You should try sitting up here without as much as a ticking clock or the mutter of house elf," he countered. "After the first week, the days tend to blur into one another and before you know it, you have almost forgotten what month you are in."

"You win," She deduced lazily, perching precariously on the edge of the bed, a mixture of not wanting to intrude into his personal space and a feeling of uneasiness stopping her from getting comfortable. Harry had sternly warned her not to talk to him under any circumstances, leave his food and leave the room without even as much as a backward glance. But what Harry didn't know, wouldn't hurt, right?

"It's ok, I won't tell Harry." He smirked evilly; his eyes boring into her flash as if he were trying to murder her with just a look.

"Get out of my head!" She protested with a small stomp as her foot, punctuating her displeasure.

"I can't." He sniffed indignantly. "You are like an open book, there are thoughts just flying out for anyone to pick up on."

"Or maybe you are just trying extra hard to read my thoughts." Arms folded tight across her chest, she tried with all her might to block him out.

"You realise that is literally doing nothing, yeah? You are an absolute rubbish Occlumens, you know that, right?"

Her eyes narrowed, and face contorted into pure disgust and disbelief. "I am not!"

"You are." He waved a hand casually, dismissing her. "So, so bad. I think Potter achieved better results in this field than you have."

"Are you think you are so good?" She huffed, a pout creeping onto her lips.

"Well as a matter of fact, yeah, I am quite good at it, thanks. And Legilimency, oh and not to toot my own horn but I am probably the best potions master in Britain and surrounds."

She turned her body to look at him in the eyes. Dark, calculating eyes meeting soft, chocolate ones. "You are so conceited, Severus Snape and may I remind you about a certain Horace Slughorn."

He let out a bark of laughter. "He is good, yes, but great? Not so much. I could out potion him any day."

"Out potion? Is that even a thing? I could best him at potions, I could rival him at potions, but I don't think out potioning someone is a thing."

"It is now."

"Really? And why is that?"

"Because I said so. And again, shut your mind. I can see the very vivid visions of your pale, slender hands wrapping around my throat and strangling me to death. Something we could only both dream of."

"It's nice to have fantasies."

"Indeed." He smirked, quirking a brow at the young witch which now left he thinking even further, her mind racing as she tried to make sense of what his cryptic message meant.

He couldn't help but smirk, she looked terribly uncomfortable in this situation and she wasn't anything like the wretches that were keeping him here against his will. She was different, she had a certain sweet innocent's about her that he liked. An innocent's that opened her up to all kinds of deprivation and depravity. He wouldn't mind betting that under that sweet, innocent exterior Hermione Granger had a darker witch beneath that was just fighting to come out. A dark witch that he could easily sway.

He also noticed in the close proximity that she smelled of rosewater and lavender with a delicate undertone of peppermint and he thought it suited her. He shook his head; he was that bored he was sampling the delicate scent of a young woman he disliked profusely.

A silence consumed them. It wasn't an awkward silence it was just a silence where two people sat with the company of another person so as to not feel totally isolated and desolate.

The bed creaked and groaned as he shifted around her and sat beside her on the bed, a decent space between them he noted her wand sitting lazily in her back pocket before turning his head to the window, to look out and see the same sky he had been staring at for weeks in a hope someone, anyone would come for him.

"Would you like me to teach you how to close your mind, Hermione?" He eventually spoke, rousing her from her thoughts.

"Why would you want to help me?"

"I am bored. I have nothing better to do. It irks me that your thoughts are just like the floodgates to your mind have been opened. You never know when you might need to close your mind off."

"Give me one situation, because I literally cannot think of one. There aren't many legilimens out there so I needn't worry about it."

"Ok. Picture this." He got to his feet and began pacing along the threadbare carpet. "Voldemort has just captured you, he wants Potter. He's going to dive right into your thoughts and pull up the location."

"Nobody can block Voldemort out." She waved a hand.

He chose not to say anything, instead, the large pregnant pause between them gave her enough of a push to conclude it herself.

"You can, can't you?" Her voice a ghostly whisper, wide-eyed she looked at him in disbelief.

"There are a lot of things that you, and many others don't know about me. I have many hidden talents, master of many of them, only slight good at others." He sat back down beside her, the bed creaking unsteadily under the added weight.

"And murdering is obviously one of those you are a master of." She eyed him off sideways, watching as he shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

His mind ticked over slowly as he tried to form the right words in his head. "Sometimes, Hermione, you will be faced with roadblocks in your life and-"

"So Dumbledore was little more than an inconvenient roadblock in your quest to appease Voldemort?"

"There is more than meets the eye in most situations and there are three sides to every story Hermione and the sooner you realise this, the better. Not everything is a clear cut and has one solution or answer. One plus four equals five but so does three plus two."

"So you did kill Dumbledore?" She asked raising a brow. Now more confused than she had been before.

"I did, I will own that. I will admit that. I did kill him there is no denying that. But it was done for a reason, for the greater good. To protect other parties. I am not a murderous heathen with an insatiable blood lust that I can't quench. When I kill, I kill for a reason. I don't kill for the thrill of it."

"So you killed Dumbledore, but it was for the good of others?" She asked, confused still. She tried in vain to wrap her head around the situation, but she couldn't work it out.

He sighed, bored. "Yes. I killed him to save another from the atrocities of murder. I took an unbreakable vow and I had to hold up my end of the bargain." He rubbed flat pals over his eyes wearily. Hermione Granger was hard work.

"And Harry doesn't believe you."

"Precisely. Which is why I am here under lock and key and you decided to stay behind because deep down under the surface, hidden away, you care. The martyr always trying to see the good in other people and making the world a better place. But not everyone is worthy of redemption nor will the world ever be the happy cornucopia of love and happiness that you wish it to be, Hermione."

His words pressed heavy upon her. Surely everyone was worthy of redemption? Well… Most people anyway. Was he? Yes. She thought so.  
"Everyone deserves redemption, Severus. Everyone deserves a little happiness in their lives, no matter how small."

"Not everyone. Not everyone is worthy of even the tiniest ray of happiness. Take Voldemort for example. Is he worthy of happiness? Is he worthy of redemption? I know you can't answer yes to that."

"Are you worthy of redemption?" She countered him. Standing she began to pace the length of the room backwards and forwards as she waited for a reply.

"I don't know. Am I?"

"I think you are. Yes."

"Well, you are either very, very brave or very, very stupid. I am one of the last people on this earth that deserve it.

She smiled weakly at him. "I think you are wrong, Severus Snape. I think you are worthy of redemption. Now, you said something about Occlumency lessons?" How could she turn down free lessons in a useful art?! She would be stupid not to take him up on the offer.

If only he knew of his plans, he thought slyly to himself. She wouldn't think he was more than a wretch worthy of the killing curse, but until such a time arrived, he would milk this situation for all it was worth.

**A/N: Let me know what you all think? I hope you are liking it thus far. Sorry for the lack of updates, I am trying to share the love equally between all the stories I currently have in progress.**

**-Aliasmel1**


	4. Chapter 4

"Severus?" Hermione asked tentatively as she pushed open the door to the room he was held hostage in and closing it quickly behind her. Harry and Ron were due back any day now, and the last thing he needed was to be caught up here fraternizing with the proverbial enemy. Of course, she knew he wasn't really an enemy, more a victim of circumstance beyond control but nobody else saw it that way.

"Yes?" He snapped a little harder than he had intended. He was going stark raving mad in these four walls day in and day out. Never a reprieve. It didn't take long before the walls started to cave in on one and crushed their spirit exponentially.

"Ron and Harry will be back any day now I suspect so I'm not sure how often I can come to keep you company." She watched him intently as he lay on the aged bed staring helplessly at the mouldy ceiling above.

A derisive snort filled the air quickly. "I can't wait for that. Two of my favourite people in the universe."

"Are you being sarcastic?" Head cocked to the side a tangle of brown curls covered her white face.

The only answer he gave her was a pointed, blank stare and she realised right then how inept her question had been. Of course, he hated them. Loathed them, actually and probably wished a terrible death upon them she was sure.

"To what do I owe the displeasure of your company today?" Upper lip curled back to sneer just a touch. Force of habit.

"My Occlumency lesson, of course," She said a little too perkily for someone who had to endure his company voluntarily or others.

A haughty sigh passed his thin lips. Legs swung over the edge of the bed. Hermione noticed his appearance was starting to be worse for wear. Bloodshot eyes, bags under his eyes and stubble adorned his face. Robes were starting to become tatty looking and she couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt.

"Fine. But only because I like you." He motioned for her to come to sit before him on the floor. With the enthusiasm she showed at Hogwarts during a lesson, she showed here. Sitting cross-legged before him she rested her hands primly in her lap and sat up straight. He wanted to roll his eyes at the sight before him.

"You like me?" She smiled sweetly, eyelashes battering unintentionally at him.

"I like you better than Potter and Weasel, anyway." Thin shoulders shrugged high. "Although there are other people further up my list than you so I don't really see it as a compliment considering I hate those two dunderheads with the ferocity of a million suns."

"I'll take that as a compliment… I think. Maybe." A quizzical look plastered on her face as she battled in her head whether it truly was a compliment or if he was being the sarcastic asshole she had come to know and admire.

"I probably wouldn't." He sneered harshly again at her. "It wouldn't hold much merit. Are you ready? Good," his voice monotone and bored. She was unsure if he was annoyed with her impromptu visit requesting the lessons he had offered or if he had been so worn down that small cracks in his otherwise stoic demeanour were starting to appear.

"I'm ready. I think." Teeth gnawing harshly at her bottom lip in worry. Pushing her curls over her shoulder, frizzy from being brushed and almost unmanageable today.

"I'm going to really push in. I can read your thoughts without any intrusion but this time, I will be pushing into your mind and you are to push back with as much force as you can. Extract me from your mind and build barriers. You don't want me to see your deepest, darkest secrets so keep me from those, protect them with every fibre of your being. It will be tiresome, and you will be mentally and physically exhausted after this."

A small nod of her head was enough for him to begin. Holding her gaze with his own her had never realised how deep and warm her eyes were. He never had a reason to stare into them. He mentally scolded himself for letting his mind get off track.

She noticed his eyes were despondent and cold. An uneasiness swam in the depths and she couldn't put her finger on if it is perhaps he had a worry in them mingling with villainous intent.

Gasping loudly her head hurt, feeling as if she had been cracked over the head with a steel bar. At least she knew she had never had anyone in her mind because if it felt like this, she would have known. She felt an uneasiness sweep over her and could feel his presence weighing heavily upon her as he started scratching the surface of her memories. At first, they were trivial and boring, fights with Harry and Ron or times she cried herself to sleep at night over their childish antics.

She shuddered slightly as he pushed further. She didn't like this one bit. He navigated the twists and turns of her mind stopping at something that piqued his interest. The time she sent her parents away. A lump formed in her throat heavily as she relived the sordid memories of months gone by.

She tried to push him from her thoughts. She pushed and she pushed, and it hardly felt like she had budged him an inch. She tried again and again as he began peeling back even more layers and delving deeper. She didn't want him to see anymore. She didn't want him to see her deepest desires and her twisted fantasies some of which may or may not have involved him at one time or another. Stupid schoolgirl crushes held little merit in her eyes.

"Push harder!" He bit at her gnashing his teeth in pain and frustration. This hurt him almost as much as it was hurting her. It was hard work pushing this far into someone's mind when they were fighting you the entire time.

"I can't!" She bit through gritted teeth, her heading feeling as if it may split open at anytime a piercing headache forming just above the temple of her left eye.

He pulled back. She felt him leave faster than he had entered, and she breathed a contented sigh of relief. Her mouth was dry and her whole body shook, on hands and knees she panted hard looking up at him with condemnation.

A smirk gently played on his lips as wickedness sat in his eyes. "It's been a while since I've had a woman panting before me on all fours giving me a look like that."

"You are disgusting," She managed to choke out, slowly and gently clambering to her feet and dropping beside him on the bed, her whole body shaking and spent.

"It's not as easy as you imagined, is it, Hermione?" An air of smugness cloaked him and shrouded her, almost mocking her harshly.

She hated the smugness that surrounded him at this moment, and she hated being wrong. She wanted to master this on the first go as she did with many things she turned her hand to with little to no real effort on her behalf. But this, this she wasn't a natural at and she hated it.

"No." She pouted, crossing her arms tightly across her chest in the ultimate show of petulance. She hated not excelling at something she had set her mind to.

"You are just oozing petulance, right now." His eyes rolled backward. "You can't be good at everything the first time you try it, you know that, yeah? Occlumency is a task that takes many months and years to master. It isn't something that you can learn in one sitting, Hermione."

"But I want to." Her petulance continued to emanate around the room tenfold.

"You can't be the stereotypical cookie-cutter genius that you seem to see yourself as all the time, Hermione. You aren't perfect, nobody is and you can't expect to be at everything you try your hand at," He said matter of factly, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"I'm so tired after that, I'll just rest here for a moment." She leant sideways, resting her head on his pillow, eyelids heavy with the need for sleep.

"No. Not here you don't."

She groggily waved a hand and he knew it would be too late to evict her from his space. Fuck.

"I'll just rest here a few minutes," She managed to groggily mumble before her breathing turned shallow and soft with every rise and fall of her chest.

Well. That was rude. He thought to himself. Now. Should he search her for her wand and run or stay put.

He tapped his bottom lip in deep thought for a few moments. No, he would stay. He wanted to see how long it would be before she was escorting him out of the house and trotting along behind him like an obedient puppy that wanted nothing more than to please its master while she stared at him with carnal fascination.

Oh yes, this was going to be fun.

**A/N: I am having so much fun writing this story. I love an evil Snape, he is so diverse that you can go for the redemption avenue and have him fall in love and live happily ever after, or you can have him be a total cunt who doesn't care who he offends with a maleficent intent. He's diverse like that.**

**I had someone ask if it was going to be a happily ever after and I honestly don't think it will be. So if that bothers you, you won't be too invested in this story to turn back now.**

**-Aliasmel1**


	5. Chapter 5

Well. This was incredibly awkward and completely unorthodox. The young girl, barely an adult had just made herself at home on the shit-heap of a bed he was so generously bestowed with and currently claimed it as her own.

The little swot was so drained from their lesson, she couldn't even make it out of the room before falling asleep and snoring, might he add. If only Potter could see her now, the wise beyond years Hermione Granger, the little know it all cow asleep peacefully on the bed of such a dangerous murderer, strong enough to kill Albus Dumbledore and here she was wand placed loosely in her pocket for the taking. Tsk tsk. Tragic.

He paced the room, well, the three steps he could stride with his long, lanky legs before having to turn and stride the opposite direction and repeat over and over again. Probably for eternity, he thought.

Who did she think she was snoring right there in front of him. The hide of some people honestly. He rolled his eyes almost to the back of his skull. He could run, hell he could take her wand and slit her throat if he really had it in him. He did, but he didn't want to. She was not like them, she was…different. A kind and a caring glimmer of hope shone through her and he liked that about her. However, if he could get his hands on Potter, that was a whole different kettle of Nifflers.

He stopped dead in his tracks, almost skidding on the slippery, worn carpet as he tilted his head a little. He was certain he had heard a door slam shut on the floor below them. Stuck to the spot he held his breath, straining to hear. He was certain there were a few sets of feet slapping loudly against worn wooden floors from the floor below accompanied by muffled, male voices. It had to be Potter and Weasley, he deduced, turning on his heel he loomed over Granger.

"Granger," he snarled in a mild panic. If they came up here and saw her asleep, they would assume the worse and all the groundwork he had laid would all be gone by the wayside.

"Granger!" He hissed again. She didn't respond.

For fuck sake. Not only did she snore but it was apparent she was a heavy sleeper too.

"Hermione!" He raised his voice a few more octaves, placing a hand on her shoulder he shook her with vigour.

Her eyes fluttered open to stare at him blankly as if in a moment of panic, she didn't know where she was or what he was doing here. Slowly she sat up blinking once, twice, thrice at him as her memory began to work again.

He could hear the voices growing a little louder, footfalls heavier and he knew they were on their way up. He knew the way they walked; he knew how heavy their steps were on the hardwood floors. He knew it was Potter and Weasley walking together. He had heard their footsteps more times than he had cared when they came to collect him for their little torture sessions. It was funny, they always thought they were close to breaking him but they were so far from succeeding it was laughable. It would take more than those two and a few members of the order to beat him into submission. Hell, even the Veritaserum was of literally no use when the forced it down his throat. He was immune to that as well.

"What?" She asked. Lazily rubbing her chocolate eyes. She didn't even feel refreshed. Her mouth dry and mind still hazy she got to her feet.

"Potter and Weasley are back and they will be coming to look for you. I assumed you might want to leave before they come looking." Lips curling back into a sneer.

"Right. Yes. Thank you." Hands smoothed over her clothes meticulously before running an open palm over her tangle of frizzed curls as if thinking something so minute would tame such a wild beast. It did literally nothing other than sending them even more awry.

She strode across the room with purpose, hand outstretched she grabbed the cold brass knob and stopped for a moment turning to look at him.

"Thank you," she said simply before exiting quickly.

"You're welcome," he muttered to a now-closed door.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Where have you been?" Ron admonished as she met the two boys heading up the stairs.

"Checking on Se-" she stopped herself. The last thing she needed was not only telling them she was up there with him but to go calling him by his first name in front of the two of them and have their suspicions grow.

"Checking on several issues around the place. You know, broken floorboards, things Kreacher has been neglecting." Wow. Great and believable save, Hermione. She mentally scolded herself.

Harry looked at her with a hint of disbelief buried in the depths of his eyes and a raised brow. Since when did home maintenance issues pique Hermione's interest. Just as he was about to say something, she spoke again.

"I was bored, Harry. I was finding things to do. When I am bored, I make lists in my mind to stop me from going mental." Arms folded tightly across her chest, nostrils lightly flaring as if daring him to question her further. He didn't. But he didn't believe her, either.

"How's the double-crossing piece of shit murderer going. Probably enjoying his downtime," Harry said matter of factly completely changing the subject.

She shrugged with false innocence. "I've no idea. Haven't breathed a word to him I've fed him and left him be."

"Good," Ron snarled a little too harshly for the answer she gave. "He would murder you twice before you even realised," he added.

"Literally he could not murder anyone twice, Ronald. You can only die once. I know that might be hard for some people to comprehend," She huffed with a roll of her chocolate eyes.

"You know what I mean," he said pointedly. "Figure of speech. He's dangerous."  
About as dangerous as a Niffler, she thought to herself, amused. If only they had known the time she had spent with him, they would have kittens or Nifflers…Maybe even baby dragons.

"Actually. We should get him out now. For a bit of fun. He hasn't spilled a word to us that we want to know, and I reckon we are close to cracking him." Harry pushed passed Hermione on the stairs on his way to get Severus.

She wanted to laugh. They were no closer now to getting him to crack than they were in the beginning. He was a lot stronger mentally and emotionally than they even realised, and he was so far from breaking. They may as well be trying to knock down a brick wall with a feather… They would have about the same outcome.

"Harry!" Hermione warned sternly, anger glittering in the depths of her eyes, lips pursed.

"Yes?" He turned back to look at her, almost skidding down the step catching the banister just at the right moment to ensure he didn't end up falling.

"This is barbaric, you know, yeah? I want nothing to do with this. It's inhuman not to mention _illegal_." She punctuated her disdain with a stomp of her foot.

"Yeah well I don't care, Hermione," his voice rose as he spoke. "Killing people is illegal as well."

"True. But you can't play the martyr, Harry. You cannot go around playing the vigilante and bring justice to those that you feel need it. There are avenues for that. People to deal with those things." She was mad now. Seething mad.

"I'm doing this for justice for Dumbledore. I am not seeking justice for myself, Hermione," he was almost screaming at her now, shaking with anger.

"Honestly what is it with you and Dumbledore? Dumbledore this, Dumbledore that. Dumbledore said this or made me do that." She threw her hands high in the air in utter frustration.

"He was a great man Hermione." Harry's eyes darkened dangerously as he shot daggers at her.

"I agree with you, Mate." Ron slapped Harry jovially on the shoulder.

She rolled her eyes in anger and frustration. She hated them both with the ferocity of a million burning suns right now. How dare they.

"Well. When you both get thrown into Azkaban for a plethora of broken laws, I will not be there trying to bail you out!" She turned on her heel, stomping all the way down the stairs as loudly as she could to express her current anger.

o-o-o-o-o-o

"I must say, Potter. I have missed you." He sneered viciously as he sat in the kitchen bound to an old wooden chair. Harry and Ron both holding their wands to his temple, Hermione standing with her back against the wall, head held in her hands. She hated this.

"Crucio!" Harry almost yelled with glee. Watching as Snape's body writhed lightly in the chair and stopped. He emerged laughing.

"Are you torturing me, or giving me a full body massage? Because that is what it feels like. Your heart needs to be in it, Potter. You don't have it in you." He smiled evilly.

"Stop it now, Harry!" Hermione admonished. Chest heaving and sticky tears stained her cheeks. "This isn't what normal people do. You aren't evil or a cruel person, and this isn't you!"

"He killed Dumbledore and he will pay."

"Why don't you just marry Dumbledore, Harry? You are obsessed with the man."

Harry ignored her smart remark. "You're good at spells, Hermione. You come Crucio him."

"I will do no such thing!" She shrieked loudly, almost bursting their eardrums. Severus Snape had been nothing but nice to her since they had taken his hostage and she refused to partake in the torture of the man. Now or ever.

"Whatever," Harry muttered coldly, narrowing his eyes at the girl.

"Just give up, Potter. You are as useless as your pathetic father. Quit while you are ahead because sooner or later it will all backfire on you and you will be begging me for mercy."

Harry's nostrils flared as he looked at the man with deep, eerie regard. Hands shaking and knuckles white from holding his wand so hard he acted before he fully thought of the consequences, as usual.

"Sectemsempra! Harry screamed, making a slashing motion with his wand.

A blood-curdling scream came from Snape as he writhed in the chair for a few moments before falling silent. Blood trickling from two deeps cuts, one on his abdomen and the deepest one on his right thigh. The crimson liquid flowed like a waterfall coming to fall like soft raindrops onto the wooden floor below.

Harry was white. Ron paled considerably, his bright hair even brighter against his now stark skin. Snape was whiter than a sheet and Hermione could only stand there, mouth agape as she processed what had happened.

"Fix this. Please, Hermione. Fix this," He pleaded with the girl desperately, walking around in circles as if wishing the floor would swallow him up and whisk him away from the mess he had created.

"I can't just fix it, Harry. I can patch it up but I don't think I can fully heal it. Just go before you both faint and I have three or you to look after," She ordered.

Severus looked at her with regard in his eyes. A hope that she could take the pain away and patch him up. He hated Harry and he hated him even more for using a spell he knew was not only dangerous but had the possibility to kill. They had stepped over the threshold of mild torture to get what they wanted to almost attempted murder.

She pulled her small, beaded bag from her pocket and expanded it to the normal size and reached her hand in pulling out bandages, gauze and salves. Unfortunately, no spell she knew was going to stop the blood flow or take the pain away.

She grabbed a kitchen knife and cut the binds that were holding him to the chair and laid it on the ground beside her. Pressing gauze to the wound on his stomach the white material was soaked in seconds and it was evident that it wasn't going to be cut out for anything. Not something of this magnitude anyway.

She darted back to the kitchen bench and found a stack of tea towels. Racing back to him she pressed them to his abdomen hard, and she noticed him wince considerably.

"I'm sorry," She mumbled. Grabbing his own hand, she pressed it against his stomach to hold the tea towels that were quickly becoming soaked with his own blood. She pressed a few to the cut on his thigh and held it firmly.

"You don't have to be sorry. You are just cleaning up the mess of an inept moron," He managed to bite out between tightly clenched teeth.

"Yeah, well. He wasn't totally blessed with the ability to think before he does."

Severus snorted loudly and then winced from the pain. "You are only observing this trait of his now?"

"Oh no, I've always known since the first day I met him. He isn't totally stupid he can be pretty smart but yeah, his downfall is not thinking before he acts and then he gets shitty when things don't go his way and he takes it out on everyone around him." She pressed harder on his leg causing him to wince and yelp in pain.

The tea towels were now soaked through and her hands were now marred with the crimson blood of her professor as she tried in vain to help him, to stop the bleeding and it hadn't even slowed let alone stopped. She was worried now.

"It probably won't stop, Hermione. It needs the counter-curse that only I know but I cannot perform without a wand."

She sighed deeply looking to the blood-soaked towels and then back to his cold and clammy skin, any remnant of colour that once graced his cheeks had all but vanished and he began to shake as if he were freezing cold. If something didn't give soon, he would be dead.

Chocolate eyes closing and a long, deep exhale told him she had made up her mind. Swiping at her pocket vigoursly she grabbed her wand in her now crimson hands and shakily handed it to him. She figured he was going to kill her by now, he would have done so.

"Harry has yours under lock and key and I won't have time to retrieve it, you will have to try to use mine."

Shaky long fingers gently took the wand from her as he adjusted himself on the chair, trying to pull himself up. Her wand felt completely foreign to him and he could feel it already trying to fight the dark magic that he had coursing through his veins but he was certain the wand would cooperate long enough to get what he needed doing.

Tracing the end of her wand again the cut on his thigh he screamed as it began to seal up, the bright, white light almost seemed to cauterize the wound, leaving a bloodied scratch behind. He repeated the process for his abdomen, and she watched on in astonishment, mouth agape at the way he not only handled a foreign wand but managed to heal himself wordlessly and whilst nearing passing out from pain and blood loss.

He paused for a minute, black eyes watching her intently as her wand hung loosely in his fingers. She was different from the other Troglodytes that held him here. She was sweet and smart with an innocence that shrouded her. She reminded him of… He pushed that thought to the very back of his mind to be forgotten again, hopefully.

Hermione Granger had just selflessly handed him her wand and left herself completely defenceless and at his behest. Interesting. His hand twitched softly before he thrust her wand back at her and she took it gratefully.

She ran a single-digit across the shallow cut on his leg and he winced gently. The pain was almost gone, but the cut sensitive to touch, or maybe he was just extra sensitive to her touch.

She had always regarded Snape as a figure of authority, and she supposed that had not changed even now but she hated seeing him so vulnerable and held against his behest. She still trusted him, of course, she did. Yes, he killed Dumbledore but there had to be a reason for that, one that he had not yet told her and one that perhaps she would never know. She didn't like the way Harry was treating the man no matter if he murdered or not. Basic human rights were violated, and he could have died due to Harry's ineptitude that knew no bounds.

Hermione was utterly pissed with Harry right now. Annoyed with Ron for constantly siding with him, sick of herself for being a doormat and allowing this and upset for Severus who had no choice in any of this.

**A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you like this chapter. There is just the slightest shift between the two of them at the end of this chapter. I am slowly but surely going to steer them in the right direction towards friendship and beyond. I hope you liked reading as much as I liked writing it.**

**-Aliasmel1**


	6. Chapter 6

"Thank you, Hermione, for cleaning up the mess I created," She huffed as she barged her way into the room Harry and Ron were sitting in, talking animatedly. She had patched Severus up the best she could, cleaning the blood from the wounds and bandaging the wounds that were left behind. He had insisted they were but a scratch but it was the least she could do and then she had taken him back to his room with some blood replenisher potion and some food to steady his sugar levels and ensure he didn't pass out and die. She had left him with the promise she would come check on him again soon to ensure he was still breathing.

"Is he alive?" Harry asked with a sombre tone in his voice but the look dancing in his eyes told Hermione that his true feelings didn't back that up and he probably really didn't care if Snape lived or died. After all, he had made it known on more than one occasion how deep his hatred for the elder wizard ran. It ran deep inside of him, almost consuming him as it ran through his veins like an insidious disease he couldn't control. She was sure that he wanted to hate Snape, she knew it, she could see it in his eyes and etched into every line of his face. Even if Snape had been totally innocent Harry would still loathe him with every inch of his being.

"Yes. No thanks to you." A roll of her eyes told Harry that perhaps she was just a tiny bit pissed off with him.

"I admit maybe I shouldn't have done that… Flew off the handle a little bit but I was angry, Hermione. He insulted me. I. Well. I have an unusual amount of anger and hostility in me lately and I just can't explain it." A shaky hand carded through raven hair, getting lost in the long tresses and emerged seconds later to fall by his side.

"He's insulted me plenty of times too, but I haven't gone and tried to kill the man. Do you realise if he had have died you would have been up for murder, Harry? It's bad enough you have him here against his free will but if he had have died that would have been the end for you. When this is all over when it's all said and done you would have been trialled for murder and there would have been nothing I or anyone else could have done. I think it's about time you think about letting him go. You aren't any closer to getting him to talk." She clenched her teeth together so tightly, they slipped and ground audibly.

"I can't just let him go, Hermione," His voice shaky and wavering. "He knows too much. He knows where the order resides, he will get revenge on us for what we have done."

She snorted derisively. Maybe he would come after some of them, but not her. He had proved that quite a few times now. "Speak for yourself, Harry. I am certain I am fairly safe, you on the other hand…" She trailed off shooting him a look of mock pity from where she stood. Her tolerance for him was growing lower by the day.

"What? The amazing Hermione Granger is exempt from feeling his wrath. You are just as guilty in this as Ron and I." Arms folded tightly across his chest as he peered at her almost over the top of his glasses daring her to question him.

"Unlike you two." She pointed to the two boys one after the other, "I have shown him nothing but kindness. You know like how a human being _should_ be treated. I've said from the get-go that I wanted nothing to do with your stupid idea and I haven't. I have merely cleaned up the mess that you were too stupid to clean up yourself." Her words were heavy and angry. She was seething right now and wanted to lash out at him, she wanted to hurt him and make him feel some of the hurt he was causing her to feel right now. She was slowly starting to resent her best friend because of the stupid choices he had made in life and had now dragged her into. She felt little more than the clean-up crew to all of his wayward plans.

"So I'm stupid now, am I?" He pulled himself to full height, towering over the girl who was much shorter in stature than he was. She felt minuscule now next to him, intimidated beyond measure. Harry had never laid a hand on her before but the anger he was feeling was palpable and hung thick in the air.

"Some things you do are so ridiculous Harry," She admitted. Her eyes bore into the floor beneath her, lip quivering heavily threatening to spill tears along with it.

"Just tell me how you really feel then, Hermione," he pressed, accusation heavy in his tone.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself emotionally and she looked up at him. Caramel eyes had sadness within them, and he could tell she was so close to bursting out in tears it wasn't funny. Her eyes were red, and the tears glittered in them, but they hadn't fallen, not yet. But if she had something to say, he wanted to know now before he wasted any more time including her in any of this. If she wasn't here for him, no matter how crazy or stupid things seemed then he didn't want her coming along at all now or ever.

"Ok, fine." Throwing her hands up in the air she prepared herself for the colossal tirade she was about to unleash. If he wanted to know, he was going to know.

"I think this whole thing, is stupid. This whole Horcrux thing. The way you treated and still do treat Dumbledore as if he were a god amongst men when he was little more than a manipulative asshole who played a teenage boy better than a finely tuned piano. He used you more often than not for his own ill-gotten gains. You seem to think he was, in fact, a hero. Someone to look up to, perhaps. But it wasn't all that long ago he was treading down the path of darkness following Grindelwald like a lost puppy towards the darkness. He wasn't perfect, far from it actually." She took in a much-needed breath. She could feel the tension growing to a surmountable level within the room and Ron physically grabbed onto Harry's arm to try to diffuse the situation before anything could happen.

She watched as Harry tried to process what she had said. His mouth opened and closed a few times, his eyebrows raised once or twice, a finger extended out to point at her before he retracted it lightning fast.

"Dumbledore was a great man," He protested but was stopped when she scoffed.

"Dumbledore was great, you have that right. Great at manipulating every single person he could. Playing the maleficent puppet master to get what he wanted, when he wanted. He was no hero. He was no gentleman. He was just a man with an agenda who played everyone around him, so you all fell into his perfectly laid trap. And if you can't accept that, well I am sorry Harry, but I think we better part ways."

"Hermione," Ron warned sternly as if she were in the wrong here. But she wasn't, she was telling nothing but the truth and if they didn't like it, well do be it. Why should she lie and walk around on eggshells just to appease the amazing Harry Potter? She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. It was sickening.

"No, Ronald. Don't Hermione me. I have something to say and I will say it. I will not be silenced and chastised into the cookie-cutter friend that you think I should be. We are all our own person and we can think and feel what we want. I don't care if you worship the ground Dumbledore walked on and hold a grave-side vigil. Whatever, that is up to you, but I don't see him for that great man that you both do." She huffed and tossed her wild mane of curls over her shoulder; they became frizzier as she got angrier and riled herself up.

"Ok. Well if that is what you think, Hermione. Just leave," Harry offered coolly, lips pursued and eyes narrowed in a show of utmost anger.

"No. How about you leave on one of your little trips that the wise and amazing Dumbledore would have wanted and I will stay here and make sure Snape doesn't die so you don't end up with murder tacked onto your record along with kidnapping, holding someone against their free will and oh, torture."

"We were going to go for a few days anyway and quite frankly, I don't want you coming along now," he huffed as they played their pettiness tit-for-tat.

"Good. I wouldn't have wanted to come anyway. I'm much safer here alone where I don't have you to make stupid life decisions and put my life as I know it in danger."

"Oh yeah. Cause being left alone in a house with a mastermind murderer is really so much better than having us two for protection." Lip curling back, he snarled low in his throat angrily at her.

"No. Pretty sure I am safer here. At least if something goes wrong, I have someone with a brain to get me out of a bad situation."

"Fine!" Harry bellow angrily.

"Fine!" Hermione reiterated back in the same tone. She shook violently from the pure white-hot anger that was coursing through her veins and it took every ounce of power within her not to pull her wand out and hex him from here to last week.

And with that she turned and stormed out, stomping every step of the way out of the room and up the stairs to Severus where she burst into the room he was held in and slammed the door behind her.

"Back so soon?" He propped himself up gingerly in the bed as pain radiated across his abdomen and down his thigh almost making him lightheaded and wanting to vomit. He might be healed to a degree but then the pain that lingered during the aftermath was never pleasant and may last for weeks. Well, at least he wasn't going to die anytime soon. Every cloud did have a silver lining he thought sarcastically to himself.

"Yes," her voice filled with bitterness and anger as she flopped down on the bed beside him sending the springs recoiling beneath her and almost upending him out of the other side of the bed.  
"Do tell." Yes, that was it. Build a rapport with her, make her feel as if she could confide in him. If she confided in him her trust would grow exponentially and eventually, he would have her exactly where he wanted. Fuck, she would be trotting after him hanging off his every word while she looked at him with intent carnal fascination.

She relayed the entire story to him in detail. He really didn't care one iota, but it was interesting none the less and broke up some of the otherwise monotonous days that blurred into one another, day after day, minute after minute and hour after hour all blurred into the murky mess of time that ticked by.

He listened and he nodded, and he agreed. Tapping his bottom lip as if in deep thought he finally spoke once she had spoken.

"Well. You are right about Dumbledore. He was a master manipulator." She got that much right and he realised she was smarter than he had given her credit for. The fact she could see through the rock-solid front Dumbledore had thrown up spoke volumes about her intelligence and character.

"So, why did you kill him?" She pressed gently, tilting her head slightly to the side in interest and wonder. Hopefully, he told her. Maybe he would but she doubted it.

Rubbing open palms over weary eyes he sighed, resigned to the fact that he may as well tell her sooner rather than later.

"Draco Malfoy was supposed to kill him. He couldn't, and the truth was I didn't really want him to darken his soul and break his spirit killing when he so clearly didn't want to, so I did it. You see, Narcissa came to me one day at my home and begged me to take an unbreakable vow and to do what I had to if Draco couldn't and who was I to say no when a woman comes to my home almost crying her eyes out, distressed." He signed haughtily as if gathering his thoughts before continuing.

"Dumbledore knew, of course, he did, I told him. We had already discussed that when the time came, I would be the one to kill Dumbledore, thus saving Draco from a life of misery, locked away in the confines of Azkaban for something he was forced to do by the Dark Lord. Draco isn't as cruel and as cold and calculating as he appears on the surface. Deep down inside, past the hatred and the bitterness lays an innocent boy just yearning for attention and a life of normalcy. He didn't want any of this, he doesn't want to be used as a weapon for the Dark Lord, threatened with the life of his mother should he not comply."

He shifted again in the bed trying to get comfortable, his leg brushing against her thigh gently and he was surprised she didn't recoil from him in disgust.

"So, you saved Draco from having to spend the rest of his natural life in Azkaban?" Her expression softened at the realisation of the selflessness that he had shown.

"Basically. Yes. And in return, I end up here against my free will for a crime that Dumbledore organised, and I had little to no say in. Again, with the master manipulator thing as you have already discovered. You see, he was smart and quick-witted but he, just like Potter often didn't think about consequences to his actions."

"A victim of circumstances beyond your control?" She asked softly.

Without thinking he reached out and tucked an errant frizzy curl behind her ear, a single finger brushed against her cheek accidentally. "Aren't we all Hermione? Aren't we all."

**A/N: I am really feeling this story lately. Loving writing it if I am honest, and I have had a bit of inspiration which is why you are getting a second chapter in twenty-four hours. I hope this tides you over until the next chapter, hopefully, sooner rather than later whilst I give love to my other stories and their readers also.**

**-Aliasmel1**


	7. Chapter 7

"Go." Hermione inclined her head to the now open door of the room he had been held captive in with little reprieve other than being taken out and beaten and berated beyond measure. "Shower. Fresh clothes are in there."

He watched her with intent in his eyes trying to work out what angle she was coming from. Or perhaps she didn't have an angle at all, and he was buttering her up just right and he had her exactly where he wanted her. Perfect. She was starting to trust him.

"You are smeared and smattered with your own blood. I can't morally sit by whilst you are in such a state. Harry and Ron probably won't be back for days, or weeks so you are safe."

"Where did they go?" Voice heavy with questions as he watched her tilt her head to the side just so as if thinking.

"Bill and Fleurs wedding. I wasn't very much interested in going anyway," She harrumphed, letting a short, sharp breath out of her nose indignantly. "Now, shower, go." She ordered with bitterness in her voice, but she tried to remind herself that she really didn't care if she was missing the wedding with her two friends.

"Thank you." He bowed his head ever so slightly showing his appreciation. Of course, he could run right now. He could have taken her wand on many occasions. Hell, he could overpower her now and take it, a young girl of her age wouldn't physically be a match for a man, genetically one stronger than the other. He could run but where was the fun in such a thing as that? There was none. This was much a game of cat and mouse and he was having too much fun to quit now. He wanted to see how far he could take this. He wanted to see if he could fully sway her onto his side and have such hatred and loathing for the two boys that she would do _anything_ for Severus.

Once he left the room she sighed hopelessly. Why was she like this? The vigilante fighting for the rights of others while ruining the friendships she had formed with others. Why did she do this? Was Severus Snape worth the loss of her friends? Probably not if she were honest but how could she stand by while such an unjust was being committed right in the same house she was currently residing in. It would make her no better than the uncouth savages if she turned a blind eye and walked away and pretended that nothing was happening. That wasn't her.

She knew she could patch things up with the boys eventually, she hoped. She knew she could bring them around but right now her main priority was Severus and seeing what became of him. She could let him go, but at the same time, she wasn't sure what sort of reception that would garner her from the order and her friends alike. They would likely ostracize her that much was evident, but would she receive the same treatment he currently was? It was possible. After all, they would view her as a traitor and assume she was in on whatever little scheme Severus had going on at any time.

Her thoughts must have been running rampant for a while because it was all that long before he was pulling her from her revere by clearing his throat heavily. Something she assumed he must have done a few times because she realised, he was standing before her dressed in the loose-fitting tee and a pair of house pants; the only things she could scrounge up in the house that would fit him.

"I'll get your robes cleaned and washed up for you. You don't look half as intimidating dressed in what you have on right now." Eyes raked up and down several times taking in the man that stood before her. He looked like a totally different person when he wasn't clad in the blackest black. Not as intimidating, not as dour. She noticed his frame was quite lithe, the loose tee showing off his thin body and she supposed maybe they weren't feeding him enough; she would have to rectify that situation.

"That would be appreciated. I feel almost naked in this ghastly get-up." He waved a hand airily over the outfit he was wearing, nose wrinkled in disgust at the offending outfit she had bestowed upon him. Of course, he was grateful for the show and the effort she went to finding him something to wear but it just wasn't him. No. Dark clothes and brooding was his signature brand.

"Would you like another Occlumency lesson?" He asked gently as he sat beside her on the bed. It wasn't like they had anything better to do to pass the time and he was feeling generous towards the girl. After all, she was the only one that had ever shown him compassion and kindness the entire time he had been here.

"Yes!" She almost squealed in delight. The days had been terribly boring and dull that it would be nice to break the monotony up. The walls almost felt as if they were closing in on her day by day, but she knew she was safer here than leaving, for now, anyway.

In a flash she had almost leapt from the bed to the floor in the blink of an eye, legs crossed she oozed the image of the teacher's pet sitting and waiting to be praised for a straight back and a tight lip. Pathetic.

He gently lowered himself on the floor in front of her a lot slowly and more casually than she had. The old body ached to get down on the ground now. Bum bones digging into the incredibly hard wooden floor causing him to wince slightly and find a more comfortable position.

"You remember what you have to do, Hermione?"

"Of course, I don't forget anything."

He almost rolled his eyes at that statement. Of course, he should have known has astute she was. It was almost sickening that a person could strive to be so perfect at everything they tried their hand at.

"Are you ready?" He arranged himself on the floor again to a decent level of comfort on the dust, threadbare mat and he cringed to think what microscopic creature was current running rampant beneath him in the filthy carpet.

"I'm always ready." She airily tossed a few errant curls over her shoulder and stood stock-still unmoving.

"Yes, indeed you are," He bit dryly. Was there ever a time this girl wasn't ready or didn't want to learn?

Inhaling a sharp breath he looked at her intently for a minute before pushing through her mind. A few haphazard roadblocks were throw up to stop him but he moved through them with ease and precision. It would take her a while to be able to push him from her mind, he was years ahead of her in practice and strength and she needed to strengthen her own mind to give her the ability to push him out. With the way the little Swot applied herself she would no doubt eventually be able to penetrate his own mind and the thoughts are hidden deep down behind the walls he threw up and guarded heavily.

He slowly began to pick through her thoughts. All boring at the surface, they always were. That was where everyone kept memories, they weren't afraid of, they weren't ashamed of and they didn't care about. The good stuff was always buried deep down, and he always had to work hard to excavate them.

More walls were thrown up in haste but knocked back down again as fast as they were put up. He began to trawl through memories of her friends, things they had done together and the conversations they had.

Memories of her crying broken-hearted over the torment at the behest of Draco Malfoy popped up and he couldn't feel a tiny bit sorry for the girl. He too knew what it was like to be bullied relentlessly in school.

He dug deeper, further along in the minefield of memories. She threw up another brick wall and with all her might pushed him from her mind in a panic. There was something there she didn't want him to see and she had done better than good to push him away. Of course, that just piqued his interest and he wanted to know what was hiding there. What sordid or morbid memory or thought did she have hiding behind there to force him out of her mind with all her might? He would find out eventually if it were the last thing he ever did.

She sat on the floor shaking, energy levels depleted for the copious amounts of energy and magic it took to expel him from her mind.

He watched her with intent for a few minutes as she regained her composure.

"Want to talk about that?"

"No," She bit.

"I was only asking." He held his hands up defensively at the sudden attack on him.

"How do you do it?" She shakily drew herself up to her feet and sat on the bed; he followed suit.

"Do what?" An eyebrow arched in question.

"Enter my mind without your wand? It's complex magic and quite tiring as well. To do it without a wand would require utmost practice and magical ability. I am assuming you can do wandless magic?"

"I can. At times, yes. It's taxing on the body and the magic but it is doable. I am only so well-practised in mind fucking people without a wand because I have spent years practising. It doesn't tire me much anymore perse and I can do it anywhere, any time and mostly without people knowing. I can gently enter and scratch the surface of one's mind and pull out before they know. Obviously, if I wanted to go deeper as I did with you today they would be alerted, it would be impossible to enter that deep without detection. I can do wandless magic, that's correct but nothing of magnitude. A few healing spells here and a hex or two there."

"I can do mild wandless magic. Nothing too adventurous mostly summoning things from a few rooms away." She stretched her arms high above her head and yawned loudly, not even trying to cover it up.

"It's taxing, isn't it? Trying to push someone from your mind I mean. You will need your rest after our sessions until you get some more stamina and I will need a few days between them to regain the exertion from wandless magic."

"Do you mind if I spend the night in here, Severus?" Innocence laced her tone as eyelashes fluttered sweetly. "I really don't like sleeping in my room alone with that creepy elf tiptoeing around. The other night I woke up and he was standing over me watching me sleep and I am certain he was moments away from smothering me with the pillow.

Well, yes, he did mind. He didn't want to share a bed with the girl, he found it hard to sleep as it was on his own let alone with the little Swot taking up half the bed. He would only keep her up all night with his tossing, turning and thinking out like to himself. He would be up, and he would be down, he would pace and cast an eye to the moon just yonder the window, but he was all for gaining trust and buttering her up even more, so yes… It would be fine. He gave himself a few weeks max and she would follow him out of this house like a well-trained puppy.

"Be my guest." He inclined his head to the far side of the bed. "But I warn you now I am a terrible sleeper at the best of times and will probably keep you up most of the night."

She shrugged, crawling across the bed she shimmied under the blanket over the top of the mattress, head resting upon the pillow and was out like a light.

He wished he could fall asleep with such ease. It usually took him three hours and ten sacrifices to Merlin before he even felt drowsy.

He laid down beside her, his back to her front. He had to admit it was a lot more comfortable sleeping in these clothes than trying to do so in the robes he had been stuck in. 

o-o-o-o-o-o

Groggily his eyes fluttered open as the early sunbathed the room in its golden glow. Blinking once, twice, thrice he tried to process what exactly was going on here.

Hermione's back pressed hard against his front, brown hair tickling his nose as the scent of her shampoo ensnared his senses. His arm draped over her; a hand splayed on her hip gently. He realised he had spent the entire night asleep and never once stirred and by the looks of it, either did she.

He stayed like that, long fingers tickling her hip with small circles tracing over the bare skin where her shirt had ridden up. This wasn't right morally but she looked so content within his embrace he would feel terrible to break it right now. So, he laid, tracing circles and listening to her shallow breathing with the rise and fall of her chest. After all, she was the only one to show him the kindness of late and he would remember that when push came to shove, and he had to choose who to spare when the time came, and all of this came to fruition. He would throw Potter under the bus no qualms about it for the treatment he had bestowed upon him, but he couldn't do the same to her, she looked out for him and he would look out for her. The saying rang true, you did catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

_A/N: Hey guys. Sorry, it took me so long to update! I finally got my other story finished and am slowly going through updating the rest. I hope you liked this chapter, it's just a filler!_

_-Aliasmel1_


	8. Chapter 8

"Severus?" Hermione gently awoke as the sunlight beamed into the bedroom threw the tangled and dusty curtains pulling her harshly from her slumber. She hazarded a guess that it was sometime after nine by the height the sun was in the sky and the amount of light it was letting off assaulting her retinas.

She felt a warm hand resting on an exposed hip as if it were the most natural thing to wake up to. She didn't pull away nor did she push him off, instead she lay still on the bed feeling the warmth radiating off his body and onto her own. Leaning back just so against him she appreciated the comfort of another human when her life felt so empty of late. She liked Severus on a platonic level. He was smart, interesting and he held her attention. Of course, he could be snarky and rude but at the moment he had been treating her with nothing but kindness and she always treated others how they treated her.

Soft movements against her back and the deepening of his breath made her realise he was slowly awakening from his deep sleep and she was slightly crestfallen when she realised he would eventually move and the feeling of warmth and comfort would be gone.

"Morning," he mumbled barely audible, resting his chin on her shoulder gently not even thinking about what he was doing. The closeness startled him a little once he did come to the realisation, but he never pulled away. It was comforting to him in an odd way; to be close to someone. His soft breath brushing her cheek gently like a passing summer breeze. "I did wake up before, but you were still asleep, so I went back to sleep. There isn't much to do around here obviously so sleeping passes the time."

She rolled to face him, brown hair in a tangled mess from the night's slumber as she blinked at him through heavy hooded lids and sleepy eyes. His hand still resting on her hip as she rolled she didn't seem to shy nor was she repulsed by his touch which was unusual he thought to himself.

Angling his elbow and leaning upon it he placed his head in a flat palm and watched her intently for a moment without trying to show too much interest.

"Thank you for letting me sleep here. Kreacher is so unpredictable and we all know his stance on my kind. I usually almost must sleep with one eye open when I am alone. I've tried to deter him with spells and hexes, but you know what elves are like… Rules don't seem to apply to their magic, and he is certainly one elf I wouldn't lobby to free. He's ghastly." She shuddered slightly at the thought of the elderly elf and his hatred for not only her kind but her also. He hated most people honestly but hated her the most.

A wayward strand of frizzed curl fell annoyingly in her face obscuring her view. Before she even had a chance to push the annoying hair from her face, he reached out gently, brushing the curl ever so softly from her face. Fingertips stroking her soft skin as he did so, and it sent a shiver rippling down her spine.

Realising what he had just done his hand awkwardly rested on her face. His thumb beneath her chin he lifted her head just ever so slightly to look at her a little better. Without even thinking he leaned in close to her without a second thought, without reservations or thinking of the repercussions his lips feather-light touched her own so lightly she hardly felt the impending kiss before they both heard footsteps heading up the stairs. Pulling back with haste he was disappointed he never got to see the kiss through to fruition. It felt so right yet it was so wrong, and he knew that.

Panic in her eyes, nostrils flared she knew she had no time to spring from the bed. She had no time to right herself and she had no time to make it look as if she were coming out of her bedroom because they had already passed that she deduced from the location the footfalls were coming from.

"Shit," she whispered to herself under her breath as the footsteps grew nearer and panic intensified. How was she going to explain this one?

"Hermione?" The soft yet gruff voice of Remus floated down the hall and all she could do was groan. This is all she needed to be caught in bed with Severus Snape even though it was totally innocent and hardly anything had come out of the situation.

"I know you are up here; I can sense it." The wolf within always lying just beneath the surface heightening his smell and sense. Seconds later he walked through the open door, face contorted into confusion and slight disgust at the scene he had walked into.

"Remus!" She exclaimed. Heat creeping into her cheeks and they burnt beet-red. "W…W..what are you doing here?" She managed to finally stutter out, heart beating out of rhythm and mouth going drier than a desert. This was one person she wasn't expecting.

"What are you doing is probably more important than what I am doing here, Hermione." Arms folded tight across his chest and a foot tapped impatiently on the floor. She felt very much like she had been caught sneaking back in the house by her father after a night out. Only he wasn't her father and it was probably none of his business.

"What is it your business what she is doing, Lupin?" Severus almost leapt out of the bed with vigour. Lips pulling back into a sneer as he looked venomously at the other man now in the room. Annoyed with both himself for almost kissing the girl and equally annoyed he didn't get to follow it through because it was obvious, she had no intention of pulling away and she was starting to walk head-long right into his plan. It wouldn't be long before he walked out of here with her following along happily.

"No doubt you are filling her brain with lies and trying to sway her so she will let you go no doubt. Bedding the girl is a whole other situation. It is abhorrent and immoral that you are taking advantage of the girl when no one else is around. I actually heard what happened with Harry, how you tried to attack him and I-" He was instantly cut off by a seething and irate Severus Snape.

"For the record, Lupin, I did not bed the girl nor have I ever in the past. She asked me if she could stay in here because of that vulgar elf scurrying around here hiding in dark corners like a rat skulking around the place. I agreed. I have not touched the girl so you can back right down before you regret walking in this room. Also, I never attacked that swine, he attacked me. How would I attack someone when I have no wand, Lupin? I may be a lot of things, werewolf, but one thing I won't stand for is the making up of abhorrent lies about me," He snarled savagely, teeth bared. Fists clenched tightly till his knuckles went white down by his sides.

Lupins nostrils flared rapidly as he picked the scent up of Hermione all over Severus. Eyes glittered dangerously and his teeth bared just as Severus's had just seconds ago. "I can smell her all over you, Severus and you expect me not to believe you didn't touch her?" He took a few steps forward as if trying to detect the scent further.

"Even if I did touch her, which I didn't, it would be none of your business, wolf. Of course, her scent is all over my person, I slept beside her the entire night. Now you can stop with the interrogations because I grow bored with your trivial antics. Now back up before I make you back up."

"That's a bold statement coming from a Wizard without his wand."

"I don't need my wand to put you in your place, Remus, now back down like a good wolf," animosity dripped from his every word as it fell from his tongue.

"I could tear your throat out Severus and you know it."

Hermione not being able to bear the confrontation she pushed between the two men.

"Stop it both of you. Severus stop antagonising him and sit on the bed. Remus, everything he said is true. It's admirable that you are looking out or me but I am fine. Severus hasn't killed me yet and Harry attacked him. So I am unsure what twisted tales of woe he is spinning you but I suggest you go back and seek the truth," she huffed pushing a tangled strand of hair from her face as brown eyes stared back at him unwavering.

"That's the keyword there Hermione, yet. Just because he hasn't killed you yet doesn't mean he won't and for you to lie beside him and fall asleep is totally irresponsible of you. I won't tell anyone else what I found but you need to revaluate the trust you are obviously placing upon a known murderer," his voice almost laced with desperation as he talked.

"I'm hardly going to take the life of a child, Remus. Have you no faith in me?"

"Not at all," he growled low in his throat, turning on his heel and stalked from the room.

Hermione flopped down beside him on the bed. The fleeting kiss that could have been, the kiss that could have changed so much more was never spoken of again that day.

**A/N: Hi guys! Hope you like this chapter. The kiss thing just came out of nowhere yet it felt so right… Stupid Remus for interrupting them.**

**-Aliasmel1  
**


	9. Chapter 9

"I cannot believe he lied to everyone like that!" Hermione exclaimed exasperated as she paced the kitchen floor backwards and forwards with the finesse of a cat stalking its prey. To say she was livid would be an understatement actually.

Severus sat at the kitchen table watching her incessant pacing akin to a tiger locked in a cage. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. His neck was starting to get sore following the path she took over and over again. He noticed the angrier she grew, the faster she paced. One foot before the other, ten steps to the left, stop, turn on her heel to do ten to the left, spin and onwards.

"You are only realising now that Potter lies and quite well, I may add. Just like his father," he spat viciously. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. For a while there I thought perhaps, he wasn't even from the same orchard but once I got to know him more, I realised they were in fact from the same tree."

"Oh, no." she waved a hand dismissively. "I know he can lie. His more elaborate lies were the ones I came up with, but I am sure you already knew that. I just didn't think he would lie about that." She shrugged as she turned her back to the kitchen bench, crouched a touch and launched herself up. Her butt hitting the bench silently. Legs swingling over the edge of the bench she watched Severus intently.

"Well, then your observation skills are probably lacking because he will lie about anything and everyone to get out of trouble even if it means sinking others in his quest for freedom." He slammed an open palm hard on the table out of utter frustration.

"Mmm. Well. I think I am starting to realise that more now I am not being hoodwinked by him. His true colours are really starting to show now I suppose." She sighed deeply. Running a hand through her tangled mass of curls she wondered what he would lie about next. She exhaled sharply. Anything was possible.

Silence engulfed them as they both sat, neither saying a word. Hermione wondered what would become of them. Would they ever let Severus go? She doubted it. She wondered if she could ever repair the friendship that had started breaking at the seams, cracking, and falling down around her after they took purchase of Severus. She had never seen such an evil side to Harry such as she had of late. Yes, she knew he had red hot anger coursing through his veins, and he was out for justice for Dumbledore's death, but at the same time, he didn't really know half the story. Always rushing head-long into situations he knew little about often made dangerous circumstances and right now, keeping Severus against his will was probably making a very powerful enemy.

She studied Severus for a moment. He wasn't that much older than she, his lank hair fell limply around his face and stopped at his shoulders. His skin was as pale as ever. He was much thinner than their days at Hogwarts, eyes sunken a little and the lines in his face harsher; deeper. He looked broke; beaten. Almost a ghost of his former self and she couldn't but help feel a pang of guilt in her heart for that. After all, her friends were the ones that had made him the shell of his former self.

His thin lips pulled taught as she looked at those for a moment and blushed. Biting her own bottom lip in deep thought she looked away quickly remembering back to the kiss they almost shared earlier in the day but were disrupted. Who knew how that would have ended… It was silly of her to even think back on it. Both caught in the moment of then and there and neither thinking clearly the kiss would have been little more than a big mistake that both would regret she was certain about that but at the same time, she wondered what it would be like to kiss the potions master. To feel his lips on her own. To feel the passion of the kiss he would bestow upon her in a dizzying head spin. No. She shook her head gently, sending the thought out of her mind. That wasn't what was going to happen.

Severus watched the younger girl intently as she sat idly on the bench, only her legs swinging gently to and fro causing a slight breeze to pass him. She had grown exponentially since the first day he saw her walk into Hogwarts on her very first day, not that he took much notice of her. Back then she was just a fish swimming in the sea of anonymity and hadn't befriended Harry Potter right at that moment in time. That was her downfall, nothing more and nothing less; she befriended Potter and since that day her life had been in a downward spiral.

Her face longer, white skin soft and glowing with youth. Brown curls longer cascading down her back like a chocolate waterfall. She was thinner now, taller, not by much but she certainly had grown. He studied her studying him and he shifted awkwardly beneath her gaze and thought about pressing into her mind to see what she was thinking but opted to stay out just this once; he didn't want to know what she really thought of him. Wait. What? Since when did he care what anyone thought of him?

He assumed by the odd way she was staring him down that his plan to befriend her and have her falling off his every word was going swimmingly. She would probably do just about anything for him right now; especially after the Potter escapade. He wanted to leave here with her, just for the entertainment value. It would give him no better delight than to hear of Potter returning and he and Hermione had long gone. He wanted to dangle Hermione before Potter much like a carrot dangling before a horse just out a grasp, just beyond reach but enough to warrant interest. That. That was what he wanted. He wanted to have something Potter wanted but couldn't have.

He stood and closed the gap between them. Gently he placed an index finger below her chin, tilting her head up to look at him. He was going to test this theory. He was going to see if the girl would follow him into the unknown and the unchartered. He would see if the girl was so pissed with Potter that she would abandon all logical thinking and inhibition and follow him like a loyal dog would follow its owner anywhere.

She sighed softly catching her gaze with his own. He held her gaze steadfast and hard not dropping it for a second.

She wanted to pull away, to look away but something in his eyes commanded her full attention. She licked her lips gently and sucked in a deep breath. Was this it? Was he finally going to kill her?

"Hermione," He began bluntly.

"Severus," She met the bluntness with her own.

"Let's go. Let's run. Let's leave here. Leave Potter. Leave the order. Leave Weasley. Just disappear into the day before they storm into here wands blazing with what twisted story Lupin is going to run back and portray. The evil potions master in bed with the young, innocent Hermione Granger wouldn't warrant a warm welcome I am certain of it no matter how platonic the situation was," desperation laced his tone as he reached his free hand out to run down her cheek gently.

He could do this. He could play anyone, and the proof was in the pudding with Voldemort. If he could play one of the most dangerous wizards in the world, he could play a young schoolgirl who still had stars in her eyes and big dreams in her mind. He could play the young girl he had been moulding and playing this whole time for this exact moment.

She blinked rapidly trying to process what he had just proposed to her, thoughts hazy once he ran a finger across her cheek. Maybe she did want that kiss. No. No, she didn't.

"I. We." She nibbled nervously on her lower lip in deep thought. Something Severus noticed she did when she was thinking, however, the ferocity in which she did so correlated to whatever she was thinking. For example, just before when she was looking at him, her lip sat idly almost seductively between her teeth and now she nibbled at her lip as her life depended on it and he knew she was torn.

"Do you really want to be around them, Hermione? Do you really trust them after what they did to me? Don't you want them to learn a harsh lesson? Aren't you sick of being the friend who will do whatever they say because you feel obliged?"

He dropped her chin and rested a hand mid-way up her thigh. His skin burning hot and his touch made her leg tingle.

"And where will we go?" She whispered gently, finally able to pull her gaze from his own.

"I have somewhere. They won't find us, Hermione. But if anyone asks you are my prison. My takings from what they bestowed upon me. You will, in essence, have to play the perfect prisoner. Can you do that? Not forever. No. Just to keep up appearances for a while."

"I don't think this is a great idea," she managed to blurt out, shifting uncomfortably at the mere thought.

Lightning-fast he cupped both of her cheeks with his hands. "I promise, Hermione. Nothing will befall you. Nothing will happen to you. You will be safer with me than you would with any of the order and that's a promise." He held her gaze once more as if willing her to choose him over them.

Her posture slumped slightly, and she stopped nibbling her bottom lip and he knew then and there what her answer was.

"I will come with you, Severus. But only because I trust you."

Bingo. There it was. Trust.

o-o-o-o-o

She blinked rapidly, the orange glow of the lazy setting sun burning her retinas as Severus apparated them to a park. A heavy, dirt air filled her lungs as she stepped wobbly back from his grasp. Dilapidated houses lined the opposite side of the park, old shopping carts strewn across the large field.

She crinkled her nose up. Well. Nobody would think to look for her in this shit hole of a town.

Silently Severus set off along a well-worn path, clutching his wand that Hermione had given him back tightening in his fingers. Hermione trotted along closely behind him not wanting to fall behind for fear she may be kidnapped and sold into the human trafficking trade.

He ducked around a corner, then another and another before he stopped before a street sign and he watched a house in the distance intently checking left and right as if checking for someone or something that shouldn't be here.

She cast a quick glance to the large, grimy and faded street sign above her just as he moved on again.

The sign read Spinners End. Well. What fresh hell was this?

**A/N: I know. I Know. I have been so slack with my updating lately! I have a fair idea where I want this to go now so hopefully, I can motor along and get more chapters out for you!**


	10. Chapter 10

"You're still here?" Severus asked in an upward inflection as he pushed the door to his home open surprised Wormtail was standing before him looking as pathetic as ever. The man looked more like a rat than the last time he had laid eyes upon him. The silver hand Voldemort had bestowed upon him glowed magically in the dim light of the house. A reminded of the sacrifice Wormtail had made for a master that couldn't have given two fucks about him.

"You're alive?" Wormtail uttered under his breath surprised, with a tilt of his head. He was certain Severus had been killed by now and who was this with him? The Granger girl. His breath caught in his throat as thoughts began to dance through his head. He could see it now how much esteem his master would hold him in if he were to drag her to one of their meetings like a valuable prize.

Severus stood back and ushered Hermione in through the grubby wooden front door of the quaint home. The moment she set foot in there a musty smell assaulted her nostrils and she screwed her nose up slightly but tried to hide it by scratching her nose. The house smelled as if it hadn't been aired out in a very long time and that the carpets had probably been wet at one stage and left to try to dry on its own accord.

The small wooden hallway was well worn by the years' worth of footsteps upon it wearing the wood so smooth it had no traction left. A staircase to the left led to inky darkness into the unknown and past that three doors held steadfastly closed down the narrow hallway.

She eyed Wormtail apprehensively and looked down her nose at him as if he were little more than dirt on the ground and she stepped closer to Severus, her body heat radiating against his back. He sucked in an involuntary breath as her body pressed against his softly.

"You bring a prisoner?" Wormtail stepped even closer to Hermione who in turn tried to shift her body further behind Severus to get away from the wandering gaze of a man so vile, it made her stomach churn.

"None of your business." He shot an arm out sideways as a barrier between the benevolent before him and the girl trying with all her might to distance herself from the wretch before he ended up assaulting her with his filthy claw-like hands. Long yellow nails growing out of nail beds, pointy at the ends like putrid little rat claws.

"Our master would benefit from someone with her knowledge of Potter. I say we take her to him this instant. Unless of course, she isn't your prisoner?" His eyes grew wide and Severus was sure it wouldn't be long before he was salivating all over Hermione at the mere thought of the glory she could bring him at the behest of Voldemort.

"Or, you could mind your own business and not tell nor suggest to me what I should and shouldn't do," he snapped harshly and watched at the plump man recoiled back violent.

"But our master needs to know!" Wormtail protested in a whiny tone, stamping his stubby foot against the wooden floorboards like a petulant child.

"I will deal with our master. Not you, Wormtail," he snarled. A hand lightning-fast reached out and lifted Wormtail up just high enough he was resting only on the tips of his toes within Severus's grasp.

" I will go to him and I will let him know in due time and until then, you are not to even lay a single fingertip on the girl or I will tear you limb from limb with my bare hands." The grip tightened on Wormtail's shirt before Severus dropped him unceremoniously back onto his feet and watched him scurry back from whatever hole he has clawed his way out of.

"Come." Severus inclined his head sideways and began to effortlessly climb the stairs two at a time with his long legs as he rummaged around in his pocket for his wand and lit the end, the inky blackness coming to life under the hazy wand light.

Dim light bounced off well-worn walls showing the wallpaper peeling and curling lazily upon itself. Some already met its fate on the ground to be trodden upon and long forgotten and others still clinging to the wall as if it was their lifeblood.

She noticed they walked past three doors, each as unassuming as the last before he skidded to a halt and opened a door at the end of the short hall and pushed it open and ushered her in quickly before slamming it shut behind them.

She exhaled sharply as her eye cast critically around the room and she was glad that it was kept better and cleaner than what she had seen. Shoulders slumped and she relaxed visibly she made a beeline for the large bed pushed off into a corner and flopped down upon it with nary an ounce of grace before laying backwards, legs over the edge and she was now staring up on the white ceiling.

Silence hung thick in the air and she was almost certain his eyes had been boring into her for the entirety of the silent period they were now sharing. Not that she minded. She was… comfortable around him somewhat and right now in this crazy world where nothing was normal, she could rely on Severus to be the same person he was when he woke up to when he laid his head down and went to sleep.

"I better go…" He trailed off abruptly breaking the almost peaceful silence that she was beginning to find soothing. She heard his heavy footsteps trail off across to the farthest corner of the room and then come back again after a cupboard had slammed shut. "I need you to stay in this room for me, Hermione. It's the only place you will be safe should things go... awry."

She noticed his tone was stone cold and almost had a hint of worry weaved intricately through it, but she couldn't be sure because Severus was so stoic usually.

"What's that supposed to me-" she sat bolt upright on the bed and stopped mid-sentence before swallowing hard. Hands began to shake slightly at the man before her now dressed no longer as the Severus Snape she knew but instead a Death Eater she felt she needed to fear.

"I have to go and see him." He exhaled hard. He really didn't want to. "It is better to hear from me that you are in my company than Wormtail because his stories can be quite colourful if I do say so myself. I don't know if Vo- he will want to see you but just be prepared if he does. Stay in this room and this room only and you will be safe from that wretched heathen sniffing around out there. He is here not by my choice so I cannot fix that right now."

She rose to her feet and walked slowly around him inspecting every last inch of the costume that now clad his tall form reaching out a hand her soft fingertips gently grabbed the sleeve of the garment rubbing it between her fingers to get the feel of the material before letting it go and continuing around him till she was facing him once more.

"Good luck, Severus." She gently placed a hand on his shoulder and let it linger there which is something she would have never done before she had gotten to know him better for fear he would tear it off.

Stiffening beneath her touch he tilted his head just so to see her hand placed upon him. How peculiar he thought to himself. How peculiar that she didn't recoil in disgust when she was touching him.

A leather-clad hand reached up gently without even a second thought, landing on her pale cheek he held her gaze steadfast and he couldn't help but have his mind wander to the time not all that long ago they almost shared a kiss and he couldn't help but wonder what path they would have taken if they had have.

"I better go." He pulled his hand from her cheek as if it were red hot fire and slung through the door leaving her there with little to do than bide her time.

o-o-o-o-o

Hermione tossed and she turned as she lay in Severus's bed atop the grey comforter unable to force sleep to lull her into its clutches. She had watched as the sunset outside of the window and give way to twilight and then the darkening of midnight and he still wasn't back. She didn't like this. She didn't like this one bit.

Was this normal for Death Eaters to be gone this long? What if something had happened to him on his way back?

She punched the pillow hard over and over again as if it would comfort her and drag her to sleep but it was futile because her mind still ran and he never arrived.

Ha. Who would have thought Hermione Granger would be upset that Severus Snape wasn't anywhere to be seen. It was funny how the world worked because it wasn't that long ago she loathed him and relied heavily on her friends and the tables had somehow turned and she hoped eventually Harry and Ron would come around but she doubted it.

She cast her mind to what would go down when they worked out both Her and Severus were gone and she smirked just a touch. Oh, to be a fly on the wall. Of course, Harry would fly off the handle as usual and vow to find her and poor, poor Ron would get swept up in whatever Harry wanted him to do.

Heavy footsteps walking up the steps she froze on the bed, her breath caught in her throat not daring to move because she had no idea if it were him. What if they had killed him and come for her? What if she was next?

She strained her ears trying to listen for some familiarity to the person walking up the steps but she couldn't distinguish any defining characteristics through the door.

Biting her bottom lip hard and still not breathing she heard the handle rattle gently and open. She exhaled the breath she had been holding in. It was Severus.

Mask in hand he softly padded over to the bed, kicked off his boots and sat on the edge of the bed.

"He wants us to go to Hogwarts," he whispered before hanging his head in his hands as if defeated and the weight on the world hung solely on his shoulders.

"Hogwarts!" She exclaimed a little too happily. Finally, some familiar in this otherwise shitty time. "And what does he want to do with me?" She sat up and skidded across the bed throwing her legs over the edge and sitting beside him.

"He wants me to gain your trust in a hope you will spill your guts about everything Harry Potter and the order. He is under the assumption I took you at wand point and you are uncompliant and unwilling to divulge anything as of this moment."

"And Wormtail? He clearly saw that wasn't anything close to the truth."

Severus waved a dismissive hand. "He isn't held in high esteem right now in our circle, so his opinion matters not."

"And what are we doing at Hogwarts?" She asked in a curious upward inflection. Her legs swinging gently backwards and forwards over the edge of the bed as she waited for an answer.

"I've been appointed as Headmaster," he forced out as if it were poison in his mouth. "Voldemort has full control of the ministry and all that is associated with it. He wants me to go and report everything back to him."

She felt her blood run cold. That couldn't be a good thing. That wasn't a good thing. Her head began to spin, and her mouth run dry. Had she picked the right person here? Should she had let herself be led away by Severus Snape? Voldemort obviously trusted him enough with something of that magnitude and here she was following him along like a puppy and never gave it a second thought.

"I just have one question," She asked him, worry and accusation heavy in her voice. "Are you on the good side or are you on the bad side?"

He sucked in a deep breath and sat silently on the bed unmoving. Thoughts swirled through his head as he tried to piece everything together slowly in his mind.

Shifting slightly on the bed he turned to face her. "Honestly, Hermione, some days I don't even know."

**A/N: I can't believe I have been so slack in updating my stories lately! Although I guess now we are in lockdown for at least the next 90 days here in Australia, if not more, I have plenty of time to update everyone.**

** -Aliasmel1**


	11. Chapter 11

"This is it," they both said in unison as they stood at the large, looming gates of Hogwarts that dwarfed the two of them by their sheer size. Black painted iron twisting and turning too and fro creating the heavy gates made hundreds of years prior still standing the test of time; the castle off in the distance almost calling to them, beckoning them to walk its halls once again but it almost seemed as if an eerie silence shrouded the grounds of the castle as if the castle were sad.

Hermione shuddered against the cool breeze sweeping hastily off the lake and whipping around them. Her curls of brown blowing softly around her face almost framing it; autumn was coming in bitter and early this year. The cold air nipping at her nose with vigour and she wrinkled it as her hair tickled it.

Severus pushed the heavy gate open and the groaning it emitted rent the air which was quickly blown off onto the wind and stepped back, allowing her to step through and followed quickly pulling it shut behind them. She led the way for a few steps before he caught up easily. Their feet lightly crunching the gravel below as they padded up the long driveway. Severus was a little pissed they didn't have a Thesteral there waiting to ferry them up to the castle and he knew it was a giant fucking middle finger from them all; of course, they would hate him after this; as far as they were aware he did, in fact, kill Dumbledore but of course there were always three sides to every story. His, theirs and the truth and he hoped that one day they would open their eyes to the truth and all he had been through to help Dumbledore.

The past few days had been strange, to say the least. The two had been almost inseparable at his home, mostly because she needed protection from that filthy heathen Pettigrew. The two of them slept together in the same bed but that was the extent of their relationship if you could call it that because that is all they literally did was sleep. Every now and then she would wake up to a stray arm over her torso or her with a hand on his leg but deep down she knew that was just their unconscious, sleeping minds doing that and not them consciously making a decision so technically it meant nothing; not that she really felt anything for him anyway. She did wonder what it would have been liked to kiss him that one time they were alone and Lupin walked in, but no other chance had come up or rather Severus had never opened himself up like that again.

She often wondered if she took the wrong path by following along blindly like a well-trained dog that bounded two steps behind its owner when she had given him back his wand and let him go. She had been so caught up in wanting revenge on Harry and the order for doing the wrong thing, that the thing she thought was the right thing ultimately could have been wrong as well. Yes, she knew he was innocent but at the same time, Voldemort now assumed she was Severus's and to an extent now his prisoner and that was dangerous beyond measure. Voldemort was a maleficent master who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted and if that meant killing her, then he wouldn't hesitate for one second and there was nary a thing she could do and she doubts Severus would stop him, either.

She wondered what everyone's reaction would be when she turned up totally unharmed and somewhat safe at Hogwarts when she had been missing for the past week. She knew news travelled fast and the staff of Hogwarts would ultimately know Snape had run off with her and they would assume she was forced and held at wand point rather than going on her own accord and she wondered what retribution he would be at the end of once they arrived together.

The two walked in utter silence, arm brushing against arm every few steps but neither even really noticed because they had been in such close proximity of late it just felt natural, although their relationship wasn't healthy in the least; she knew that. It wasn't normal to be trotting along willingly with a Death Eater. Was he really a Death Eater? She was confused and that didn't happen often. She knew she should be wary of him but at the same time she had no idea what side he was really on; perhaps he was just neutral. It wasn't normal to be running around with your Potions Master outside of school either, and it certainly wasn't in the realm of normality to like his company more than you should.

She sighed haughtily as they continued to walk the path, the castle growing closer with every step they took until they were standing at the foot of the stairs. They both stood idly contemplating entering or not. He looked at her and she at him, "Ready?" His voice a strained whisper that almost floated off on the cold breeze as he contemplated turning and running from here. Surely, they could go into hiding and emerge when all of this was over. Severus was a slippery as he was smart and slinking between the shadows and hiding in plain sight were skills of his, so it wouldn't be hard; he had no idea why he wanted to take the girl with him though.

She nodded softly, barely registering that she had done so and they climbed the stairs together slowly. Step after step drew them closer to their Severus pushed the heavy wooden door open and ushered Hermione in and stepped in behind her. She wasn't expecting a welcoming party and she was not really expecting Death Eaters there either and she swallowed hard, stepping half a step closer to Severus. Lightning-fast he reached out a hand pressing it into the small of her back to stop her tripping over his foot and righted her.

"Are you ok, Miss Granger?" Minerva barked in a deep Scottish brogue stepping hastily towards the girl tutting and visibly checking her over. "Did he hurt you?" she asked softly hoping he wouldn't hear.

"I'm fine, thank you." She smiled meekly at the woman who stepped back in line with the other faculty who all looked white as sheets and noticeably uncomfortable and she wasn't sure if that was because Severus was there, the Carrows or the fact it certainly did look like Severus had taken off with Hermione.

"Pray to tell Severus, Why have those… D-Death Eaters been placed within the walls of Hogwarts?" Minerva spat with venom, inclining her head to the Carrows who looked as if they wanted to tear her throat out with haste and there would be zero regrets.

"I'm just the messenger Minerva so don't shoot me but they are here by order of the Dark Lord," He spoke slowly, pronouncing every word articulately to get his point across. He didn't want to deal with frivolous issues he had no bearing over and no ability to change.

"You can't just have them roaming the halls scaring the children Severus!" She protested heavily with a few half-hearted nods from the other faculty.

"I don't make the rules, Minerva." He waved his hand airily dismissing her completely. Honestly, what did she want him to do? Send them packing back to the Dark Lord where they would just be sent back again? He honestly didn't want them here either, but he had little to no say. He was merely playing this game to survive and see out the other side if this even came to an end. Dumbledore always told him to trust the plan and wait but right now he wasn't sure there was any plan and waiting wasn't going to do anything. He had to be proactive and put his best foot forward and play the game to come out trumps.

"Isn't that Potter's little bitch?" Alecto Carrow spat out, taking a keen interest in Hermione for no reason at all, looking down her nose as if Hermione were dirt on the ground beneath her boot. Stepping forward towards the young girl she grabbed her chin roughly and forced Hermione to look up at her. "Or is she your little bitch now, Snape?" Heavily hooded eyes swam with question as she shot a glance to Severus wanting confirmation, but nothing was answered. "Fucking a filthy Mudblood? That's low, even for you."

Hermione didn't really know this woman, but she knew who she was. She looked a few years her senior and had the strength behind her. She wasn't exactly lithely framed and had some muscle behind her. She struggled to pull from her tight grip on her chin until Severus stepped in and snatched her back towards him putting an end to the assault.

In an instant his eyes turned dark and stormy; angry. "If a single one of you even touches a single hair on that girl's head, I will tear your teeth out one by one, slit your throats and bleed you out like a slaughtered lamb. Don't you dare try to put it over me and go behind my back to do so because I will hunt you down until the end of time. She is a prisoner of the Dark Lord and I am sure he would hate to see you two fuck something else up for him," his voice so dark and cold it sent shivers down Hermione's spine, his tirade at the Carrows that he immensely disliked but had to put up with due to the nature of the beast. His chest rose and fell hard with anger. How dare she call Hermione a Mudblood and what made her think she had the permission to belittle her? Wait. Why the hell did he care anyway?

"What, need her close to suck your cock?" Alecto barked smartly, a small smirk tugging at the corners of her lips revelling at her quick wit and humour, not even recoiling once at his threat.

"What? Would you rather be sucking it instead, Alecto?" He snarled, curling his upper lip in distaste. He would much rather have his cock sucked by a Hippogriff… It would probably be safer.

Amycus snorted. "She'd need a potion, a magnifying glass, a map and a hell of a lot of luck in locating that," he barked with laugher haughtily.

Hermione flushed beet red at the exchange of heated words that were being exchanged in front of her. She had never heard such talk before in her life, nor had she even been privy to any sexual banter of any kind and here they were just freely throwing words around as if it were second nature to them. Hermione was unsure if Harry and Ron talked like that but if they did, they never did so in front of her and with good reason; Molly would have clouted them for being so uncouth.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Snape said coolly. "I assumed it would be nice for her to suck someone else's rather than her own brothers every night." Hermione noticed a small flick of smugness cross his features but it had vanished just as quickly.

Hermione's face was still flushed red but she couldn't help feel a pang of something, maybe jealously that he would even think of suggesting he have any sexual relations with the other woman and he wouldn't even touch her when she was lying in bed beside him every night. She wouldn't be totally against it, not by a long shot. She liked him enough and felt comfortable enough to sleep beside him and she wouldn't stray from the idea IF that ever happened and he instigated it but as it stood, she wasn't brave enough to start anything for fear of rejection and she really wanted to wait until she was in love with someone before offering herself to them and she certainly didn't love Severus, not by a long shot.

She was just starting to mature sexually, and she often had thoughts and urges that she would push down into the deepest part of her soul and quash any feelings she may have and it worked just fine. Often she wondered what it would be like to kiss someone, really kiss them, throwing caution to the wind and releasing any inhibitions and just going for it, lips on lips battling for supremacy and coming out totally breathless at the end and then wanting to go again.

"And what about Miss Granger?" Minerva's Scottish brogue snapped her out of her thoughts and back to reality. Her cheeks flushing a soft shade of pink at the thoughts she had just run through her mind.

"What about her?" Snape asked in an upward inflection, eyebrow slowly raised in question.

"Will she be attending classes, Severus?" She almost snapped back at him.

He hadn't honestly thought of that. He wanted to keep her safe for all intents and purposes that she was now a prisoner of the Dark Lord and for no other reason what so ever, and what would the other students think? He wasn't going to let her be free prey hanging around in the Gryffindor dorm with the Carrows skulking about. Even with the very direct warning he had given them, he didn't trust them as far as he could pick them up and throw them.

"Do you want to participate in classes?" He looked just so at her still standing beside him and he noticed a spark awaken in her eyes.

"Can I?" Her eyes as bright as the torches that lined the walls of the castle as hope tangled in her voice.

"I suppose," he sighed, resigned. What else would she do around here anyway? Not that is was going to be a barrel of laughs now anyway and she may just eventually change her mind after a few lessons anyway when she found out they were being run to the Dark Lords specifications and not to the true curriculum.

"Thank you!" She beamed. At least even if she was his "prisoner" it didn't have to feel that way.

"Come, Hermione," Minerva whispered under her breath stepping forward and reaching for the girl ushering her forward with haste. Severus lightning-fast reached a hand out, pressing it against her torso so she couldn't go any further. Dark stormy eyes staring down Minerva for a few seconds before the woman stepped back in line.

"She stays with me for the interim under orders of the Dark Lord. Safekeeping and all that." He lied. The truth was he maybe just a little bit liked having the girl around for company and right now, she was the only one who showed him any semblance of comradery and mateship if he were being honest. She didn't judge him and she spoke to him as if he were equal and he liked that. The fact of the matter he was lonely and perhaps she was the type of company he wanted to keep if and when this was over. He was tired of the evil and the corrupt. He was bored of the pretentious and the obsessed. He just wanted a friend that was none of those. A friend who was normal. A friend like Hermione.


	12. Chapter 12

Hermione stormed into the Headmasters office with a scowl planted firmly on her face as she threw her bookbag down hard on the ground beside his desk. He barely even looked up at the commotion as he piloted the quill quickly across parchment; a brow merely raised in question.

It had been exactly one week since the students came back and Hermione was integrated back into the schooling system, albeit she didn't dine in the hall for any meals and she spent more time hanging around Severus in the headmaster's office than anywhere else but at least she was learning. She chose not to take meals with the other students because the fact of the matter as soon as she walked into the hall whispers started flowing freely and all eyes landed upon her. She was the hot topic now and the fact she was seen with Snape more often than anyone else was scandalous in the eyes of the students. What really had become of the meek, studious Hermione Granger who cared for nothing but learning and traipsing along behind the famous Harry Potter? That was the question on everyone's lips.

Rumours had started flowing thick and fast hours after the students set foot back into Hogwarts mostly thanks to Ginny Weasley who had obviously heard something off of Harry and Ron about her disappearance and was ultimately surprised to see she had turned up to Hogwarts unscathed and in good spirits which was nothing at all like the picture Harry and Ron had painted at all. They had been convinced Snape had abducted Hermione to do dark and deprave things to her and dangle her in front of them like a proverbial carrot.

Some students said she was pregnant to the Dark Lord and Snape had to keep watch of her which was preposterous given his stance on her kind. Others said she had married Snape to get better grades. She only rolled her eyes because as if she needed to do that.

Others just rolled their eyes at those two statements and were convinced that she was merely under the Imperious Curse and nothing more because how could someone as unassuming as Hermione Granger be sleeping with or befriend the very surly potions master turned headmaster?

There was one rumour that had just started this morning that she had been gifted to Severus by Harry Potter in lieu of sparing his life and not a single person had actually hit the nail on the head.

They all gave her a wide berth, worried with her association to Snape and what power she may actually have within the school if she did have any type of decent relationship with him. But what happened today really upset her and she didn't know how to take it. She hadn't yet told Severus but was about to unleash. Was it a well-hinged threat, or just the Slytherins talking shit as they usually did?

"A few seventh year Slytherins corned me today and said I were nothing but a filthy slut trying to worm my way into circles in which I were not wanted nor welcome and if I didn't cease to stop the path I was on, I should sleep with one eye open." She scooted around the same side of the desk he sat on and boosted herself up onto its sturdy tabletop almost sending his ink-pot flying, and sat, legs swinging gently.

He stopped scrawling and looked up, concern etched in every line of his face as what she had just said weighed heavily upon him and this was the reason he didn't want her congregating within the mainstream of Hogwarts and attending classes. He knew how mean kids could be and he knew they would have nothing nice to say about the situation but he didn't think the majority of the trouble would come from the Slytherins; not when he was involved but it seems he thought wrong.

"It was Draco, wasn't it?" He whispered laying the quill down atop the parchment and interlacing his fingers and placing his hands on the desk.

"Actually, it wasn't. Well, he was there but he sort of hung back and wanted nothing to do with it. Zambini, Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson but this time as much as it kills me to say it, Draco is merely guilty by association."

Of course, Draco didn't say anything, he was smarter than that and he knew better than to butt in where he knew he wasn't wanted nor needed and for once kept his overly large and overly opinionated mouth shut. He would ensure he praised him for that at some stage.

"And at any time did you feel as if you were in danger?" He asked in a curious upward inflection looking up he saw nothing but milky white thighs, her skirt falling only mid-way down them and he quickly averted his gaze; she really shouldn't sit there like that.

It was strange. He spent more time with Hermione than anyone else in this world. He felt as if he had a duty to keep her safe. He was worried beyond measure that eventually the Carrows would lay their hands on her when he let his guard down because it seemed they had something against her. Perhaps, they wanted to upset him and to do that was to get to Hermione. And perhaps he felt that way because if he didn't convince her to go with him, she wouldn't have ended up back here at Hogwarts.

They shared a bed in some weird, twisted relationship that they had. Both coming to accept the oddness of the situation but neither talking about it. It just sort of happened in an organic way and it was hard to wrap his head around. Sharing a bed with a student wasn't exactly in the realm of normality but he didn't mind; he liked the company actually.

When he first set out on his plan of befriending the girl and turning her against her friends, he was going to drop her like a lead weight after he had escaped and never look back again but something changed. A paradigm shifted and by some grace of Merlin and he took her with him, and he really didn't know why. In his head, his entire plan was the turn her against her friends, fuck her once or twice to really get into her head and then leave, thus showing her she should never have trusted anyone in her life and especially not him. But now, now… Now he might have slightly cared about her and didn't want to touch her sexually for fear of breaking her heart at some stage; he couldn't handle that. To see her sad, that was. To be the reason she spilled her tears would be unjust when in the grand scheme of things, he was not worth that and he never would be.

So yes, he cared about her. He liked her. He loved being in her company but maybe that is as far as it went and that is where it stopped. They had never shared a kiss as much as he would have loved to, he knew he was not worthy of the sentiment. She deserved so much better than him and what he could give her. Fuck, he didn't even know who's side he was on if he was being honest let alone dragging her into this whole mess.

She was in essence still a child, albeit a headstrong one who knew exactly what she wanted in life but still nevertheless a child. Maybe he liked her because she reminded him of another vivacious headstrong Gryffindor who also knew exactly what she wanted in life; their similarities in personality were striking, to say the least.

Even if he did want more he had no idea how she might have felt on the subject. Of course, as if she would want the surly, angry and often difficult Potions Master that made her life hell for years prior, no, of course, she wouldn't.

"Severus?" Her soft voice met his ears, pulling him from his revere that he hadn't even realised he had fallen into, not even listening to a word she had actually said to him.

"Hmm? Yes?" He asked abruptly, mentally scolding himself for tuning out from what she had said.

She sighed deeply and repeated what she previously said, "Not particularly. I didn't get the vibe they were out to hurt me only to intimidate me and the way Draco was skulking in the background looking as if he wanted to throw up his lunch while they confronted me, I don't think he would have let them." She finished off by pushing an errant curl behind her ear and leant back slightly on the desk resting her hands behind herself and letting them take her weight.

He rested a hand on her bare knee in a comforting gesture, her skin warm and soft to the touch and his fingers twitched involuntarily. It felt so right but he knew deep down it was wrong and he didn't deserve to touch her.

She looked down at his hand curiously, this was the only real sign of comfort or affection he had ever really shown her, and it took her by surprise. She didn't push his hand away instead she welcomed the soft touch of a gesture upon her knee and that surprised him.

"I really think you should pull out of classes, Hermione. This isn't like the Hogwarts you once knew… Not with the Carrows haunting the halls under the direct order of the Dark Lord. It's run like a regiment. You've seen some of the punishments they have dished out. You know the place is going to shit and you know how dark the lessons have become. Why you would want to be privy to any of that I will never know."

Soft fingers caressed bare knee rhythmically in small circles before gently stroke upwards along her milky white thigh. He didn't know why he was doing this, but he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted. He was surprised that she didn't stop him or pull away; he was certain she would be repulsed by him.

She looked down at his hand and back to him. She didn't know how to process this. Was this going to lead to their first kiss? She couldn't the explosion of goosebumps that started at her knee and sent a chill down her spine.

He stood, towering over her a single finger placed under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. "If you want me to stop, tell me now."

Silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

How could someone so young, someone so beautiful wants someone so morally corrupt and so maleficent? It didn't make sense to him at all.

He leaned forward and lips pressed lips with the gentlest touch he had ever felt from another human before and felt her almost melt against him, clutching him tightly almost as if her life depended on him. Her eyes fluttered shut in the moment of bliss and he did the same not long after.

An arm wrapped gently around her waist pulling her closer closing any remaining gap between them his other hand sat gently on the delicate skin of her cheek and he deepened the kiss to new heights. He didn't know if she had ever kissed anyone before or If he were her first but for what it was worth, she was pretty amazing at it.

She wrapped both of her arms around him feeling the radiant heat from his body and she let instinct take over. For weeks she had wanted this moment, just to see what it would be like to kiss him, that was. She wanted to know if he were any good at it and so far, she wasn't disappointed.

He moved the hand from her cheek down to her bare thigh and slid it up under the hem of her skirt and she froze a touch against him as he did so. She didn't know if she really wanted her first time to be in the Headmasters office, but she would go with the flow.

She liked Severus. She really did. He was dark and alluring but at the same time closed and calculating. He was intelligent beyond measure and nothing scared him much. He was great at anything he put his mind to and even greater at things he had a passion in.

But, he was perhaps too closed. Locked up like the chamber of secrets with no intentions of letting anyone in and she bet every galleon in her vault that she could spend years chipping away at that tough exterior and never get through it.

She wasn't sure why she liked him so much. Perhaps she had seen another side of him over the past few weeks and realised he wasn't as cold as she had once believed but there was still an icy exterior at times.

She didn't like the fact he was a Death Eater. She hated that fact, actually. But deep down in her heart of hearts, she knew there was a good person beneath the tough outer shell and she knew perhaps he was doing what he had to do to get him through whatever he needed to get through.

She brought herself back to the moment, moaning gently against his lips just as he broke the kiss abruptly.

The scraping of the stone gargoyle outside of the door alerted them to the fact someone was on their way to his office. She jumped off of his desk and straightened her skirt, smoothing her hands over her herself she grabbed her book bag and hoisted it over her shoulder.

Giving him one look over her shoulder he had already gone back to scraping quill over the parchment and she wondered what he was thinking.

Severus looked up to see Hermione leaving the room and Minerva entering. He hated himself for what he had done. A lapse of judgement in a moment of weakness and it would never happen again. It couldn't. He couldn't encourage the girl. He had to cut himself off from her completely because at the end of the day if anything happened to him and it was likely she would be left broken-hearted and wondering what she could have done to change the situation much akin to what he had done since Lily Potters death.

He growled deep in his throat, threw his quill down and looked up. "And to what do I owe the displeasure of your visit, Minerva?" He spat bitterly as if her name were poison in his mouth.


	13. Chapter 13

She was looking at him again. He could feel her soft chocolate eyes boring longingly into the side of his head from across the sitting room. Watching. Calculating. Wondering. And he hated it.

Since the kiss in his office, he hadn't touched her. He never followed up with anything. He never even mentioned it and she never breathed a word again either, but he knew she wanted to. He could see it in her eyes. He could see her fighting an internal battle with herself but bit her tongue. He knew she wanted to corner him and let loose with a barrage of questions, but she held back and he didn't know if that was dangerous. A quiet woman was a thinking woman and that could be an issue.

He felt terrible about it, of course, he hated himself. But he knew if he let it go any further than he would hate himself even more. She deserved more, she truly did. She didn't deserve a vile Death Eater. She deserved more, so much more than he. She deserved the world and to be happy and he knew deep down he couldn't provide what she truly deserved. Instead, he had started to distance himself. He rarely talked to her, but they still shared a bed and that was merely out of the protection he afforded her and little more. He even found he was no longer waking up pressed against her. Instead, they were as far opposite one another as could be without falling from the bed.

Hermione watched him intently flicking through a book he had on his lap. Casually scanning the pages and turning the pages again and again. She wondered what he was thinking. She wondered why he was doing this. Ignoring her. Had she done something wrong? She still felt him on her lips and tasted him on her tongue. She thought about it every night since the kiss and she yearned to feel his touch. She was desperate to feel his lips pressed to hers again and it made her want to scream. She liked him for what it was worth, and he was probably the only person she really trusted right now in her life and he just wanted to push her away over and over again.

She sighed sadly to herself. She didn't want him to know how much it was affecting her. She didn't want to seem weak and vulnerable in front of him, but at the end of the day, she really, really did like Severus Snape.

o-o-o-o-o

"Granger, you're with Parkinson," Severus's voice rang out from the front of the potions classroom as soon as she walked in, both taking her by surprise and annoying her simultaneously.

Never had she ever been made to team up with Pansy. Pansy was a bitch. Hermione wasn't. Their dynamics were totally off. Not to mention Pansy and co really hated her with a vengeance. This wasn't going to sit right with her. First, he ignored her, now he was teaming her up with Pansy. Did he truly hate her that much?

"E…Excuse me?" She almost snapped out at him out of turn but managed to school herself and managed to ask him casually.  
"You are with Parkinson today. Do you not listen?" He shot her a dark glare as she shuffled slowly across the room and flopped down next to Pansy who screwed her face up at Hermione as if she were a piece of dirt.

"Excuse me," Pansy began, hands laid primly on the table before her. "First off, why do I have to sit with Granger? And secondly, why are you teaching us today and not professor Slughorn?" She spat violently and with disgust. How could he just put her with… with that?

"Because I said so and he had a prior engagement for today. Now stop asking questions and get to work on the potion on the board." He flicked his hand lazily in the direction of the instructions he had written down on the large board at the front of the room.

"Excuse me. I am not comfortable sitting next to her." Pansy looked pointedly at Hermione and pretended to gag.

"Well if you two can't get along now, I am sure you will both get along tonight in detention when you clean out the storeroom," he spoke darkly. Lips twisting into a wicked smile. He missed teaching, Mostly he missed seeing the students squirm when he put them in less than desirable situations.

"That's bullshit!" Pansy interjected, slamming open palms on the wooden table.

"I agree, actually," Hermione added her ten sickles worth into the equation. She stared at him holding his gaze steadfast. He held hers back with just as much contempt only raising an eyebrow slightly daring her to try him. He needed to push her away further and what better way than forcing her to serve detention with one of the people she hated most in this school.

"I can't believe this," Hermione bit sharply. "I didn't do anything, and I am getting dragged into this with her. Where is the fairness?"

"Life isn't fair, Miss Granger." It felt like acid on his tongue to address her as such. She was Hermione to him now. She was no longer Miss Granger. Their friendship had stepped up to another level and the formalities were all but gone by the wayside.

He watched as she conceded defeat and started unpacking her bag shooting daggers at him periodically through the lesson but she never breathed another word to him during the class.

o-o-o-o-o

Hermione and Pansy had been cleaning the storeroom for the good part of an hour. Both muttering under their breath and shooting dirty looks at the other, each wanting to say what they really thought but neither bothering. The tension in the room was palpable yet harmless. Hermione realised perhaps Pansy wasn't as tough when she was by herself and not flanked by ten other Slytherins and she found that amusing.

Eventually, Pansy was the first to speak, breaking the silence of the room. "I can't believe your boyfriend forced us into detention. I thought his little pet would be beyond that." Eyes rolled back in her head with disgust and loathing. She shoved a lock of black hair firmly behind her ear and scrutinised a jar of fairy wings that she currently held between her fingers before dumping them in a small bin she had at her feet.

"My boyfriend?" Hermione asked innocently. Perplexed.

"Snape. It's clear, isn't it? You follow him around like a lost dog clinging onto the first person to show it an ounce of kindness." She picked up another jar and began to quickly scan the label for its before date.

Hermione snorted loudly. "You must be mistaken. He isn't my boyfriend," she said stiffly. Jaw clenching tight.

"Really!?" Pansy exclaimed genuinely. "I was certain he was." She dumped that jar in the bin at her feet also.

Hermione put down the large jar she had in her hand back on the shelf and turned to Pansy. "Really."

"Well. Rumour has it, you are his prisoner. Now I am no expert but you are way too keen trotting around behind him for someone who is being held under duress. I see the way you look at him. I see the way he looks at you. If he isn't fucking you and getting something out of you, I would be wary because Snape doesn't keep people around for no reason. There has to be some reason he is keeping you close." She turned to Hermione.

"And what makes you think that?" Hermione asked her voice strained as anger flashed behind her eyes.

"Snape is a Slytherin. I am a Slytherin. I know how Slytherins work and we hardly ever do anything out of the kindness of our blackened hearts. We do things only when we can gain something. I know Snape and I know he doesn't do things unless he can benefit from it." She shrugged her shoulders high, turning away to grab another jar.

"Well I am not sleeping with him, and I doubt he expects anything off of me." It was her turn to shrug and turn back to the shelf.

"I mean believe what you want, Granger. I know Snape. I've seen how he works outside of this place and if he cannot benefit himself, he wouldn't be keeping you around. Let's look at it this way. Your friends abducted him and held him against his will. You best mate Potter tried to kill him. Then he just puts all of that aside, doesn't tar you with the same brush and takes you with him when he escapes to bring you back to the one place you actually want to be and then does everything he can to protect you from the Carrow's, who may I add, loathe Snape with a burning desire and would do anything to get their grubby little paws on you because they know if they hurt you, it will bring Snape down. And don't think just because he told them not to touch you that they will listen. Those two don't operate like that." She wiped her hands on her school skirt and turned back to Hermione whose face was totally blank.

"Well. That's a lot to unpack honestly," she whispered. She didn't know how to feel. Did Pansy really know what he was like? It made sense. She was a Slytherin, he was their head of house and it was a known fact her parents fraternised within the deep inner-circle of Voldemort. Was he really keeping her around for her own benefit or was there genuinely a reason he kept her around other than needing to benefit himself.

"If you ask me, I personally think he is using you as ways and means to get back at Potter. If he has you, Potter will want to be the ever brave and gallant Gryffindor and swoop in and save the damsel in distress and that is when he will pounce. I suppose you must be the cheese in the trap of injustices."

Hermione snorted. "I am not in distress and I don't need Harry to come in and save me. We aren't exactly on talking terms. He's a prat honestly and Dumbledore only inflated his ego by constantly reminding him he was the chosen one."

"What is you take on Dumbledore, Granger?" The two slowly starting to relax into conversation.

"For what it is worth I think he was a morally corrupt human who used people for his own gain. He was neither here nor there and never cared for Harry as he led Harry to believe. The man pretended to care but never truly did. A master of deceit if you will."

Only the sound of jars scraping wood and being binned filled the room for a few minutes and Hermione wondered if she had said something offensive to Pansy.

"You know what, Granger? I think in different circumstances you and I could have been good friends." She smiled sadly.

"You're not too bad yourself, Parkinson."

o-o-o-o-o

"What was that about?" Hermione snarled as she threw her bag back down beside his desk.

He merely looked sideways at her before gently placing his quill down on the desk and placed his hands folded on the desk also.

"What was what about?" He asked with an air of innocence.

"That. Detention." She exhaled sharply glaring down her nose at him with disdain and a little bit of disappointment mixed in.

"You are a student at this school. You will be treated as such when the need arises. I can't be playing favourites with you." Arms folded tightly across his chest as he countered her glare of disgust.

"I can't believe this!" She stomped a foot for added dramatic effect. "I sleep in the same bloody bed as you and you want to treat me as if I were any other student? That doesn't sit right with me Severus."

"So you think that gives you the right to do as you wish because you share a bed with me?" His head cocked to the side in question, wondering what her answer would be.

"You know what Severus. Forget it. I'm not going to argue. I will not enter into the argument you are clearly baiting me in to. I was wrong. So very wrong. I thought you were different and it seems I was wrong. I thought you were special. You know I thought maybe, just maybe our relationship was heading out of the realm of friendship and into something more and then turn into captain arsehole and squash any chance of that happening and deep down I think that is what you intended. You kiss me and then you push me away. Do you know how that makes ME feel?"

"With all due respect, I really do not care how you feel. I kissed you. It was a mistake and I regret it immensely. I'm not the person for you and you don't want to be with me. I am abrasive and abrupt. I will and have hurt your feelings. I think it is best we draw the line here and now. I am not wanting to be romantically involved with you in any way, shape or form and the sooner you realise that fact, the better." He stood, pulling himself up to his full height he turned to her, almost trying to intimidate her.

He could see the tears welling in her eyes. The hurt he was responsible for. The pain he had caused we evident on her face. And he felt a small, tight pang of guilt somewhere in his blackened charcoal heart. He didn't want to push her away but he had to. It was bad enough he had dragged her into this mess but he wasn't going to drag her further down that path into the realm of the unknown. Who knew what Voldemort would do to her if he found out their relationship had gone further than platonic. He could dangle her over Severus's head like a proverbial carrot.

No. It wouldn't do. He had to protect her. The ultimate sacrifice as the cost of his happiness.

"You know what. I never want to see you again, Severus." She tried to remain stoic but her lip was quivering and the tears began to fall carelessly down her cheeks. She darted around him, snatched her bag up off the floor and stormed from his office without even a backward glance.

Well. Mission accomplished, he guessed.

**A/N: I honestly thought when we went into lockdown, I would be banging out chapters daily for everyone one of my stories. That didn't happen. And then, just like that, restrictions lifted, children went back to school and I had to slowly head back to work. Forgive me for the slackness of updating but I promise this story will be finished eventually. **

** -Aliasmel1**


	14. Chapter 14

Hermione had been keeping to herself in the days and weeks after her fight with Severus. Shortly after the fight, she had gone to seek counsel with Minerva who asked no question and offered only a listening ear before putting her into her own room in Gryffindor tower. Minerva assumed that if she were in there with others, she would hopefully be less of a target to the Carrows if something went awry, rather than if she were placed into the guest dormitories. The issue was because she had spent so long with Severus and the student body as a whole viewed her as his little pet, her presence wasn't always met with kindness in the common room and Minerva often mentally scolded him for the situation he had forced her in to.

Hermione would lock herself in the room of an evening and weekends and would just sit, staring out of the window across the icy grounds of the school. Winter had well and truly set in which thankfully meant she had zero reasons to traipse around the grounds or seek out the sun. Instead, she could go to classes and then lock herself straight back up away from prying eyes and harsh whispers.

She didn't know what to do or where to go from here and she had never really felt more alone than she did now. Blindsided by Severus and the premise that maybe something more would happen than friendship and losing her best friends in the process, she was stuck between a rock and a hard place and didn't seem to have any way out.

She had been avoiding Severus like the plague so if he didn't know she was pissed in the start, he would have by now and she often sat in her room wondering if he was wondering about her. She missed him, god she missed him but on principle and the way he treated her she would not be crawling back to him and he could come grovelling back to her instead no matter how much it killed her. When she would eat meals in the hall, something she was required to do now that she wasn't given free rein under Severus's watch, she could feel him watching her almost with the intent of a lion watching its prey and ready to pounce but she never once looked up and afforded him any attention. Not even an eye flicked in his direction and in her eyes that was more than a giant middle finger in his direction.

And then when she had been walking to class and she saw him in the distance she would turn abruptly on her heel and stalk back the way she had just come even if it meant prolonging her journey and it was all just out of spite but deep down she knew he deserved it.

And now here she was, another week had passed and the weekend looming. She just had to get through today and she could spend the entirety of her weekend tucked up in her room with a book snuggled under her blankets and forget about how much her life had gone to shit lately.

She had potions first up and she rolled her eyes hard. Even though he was not her teacher anymore just the thought of being in the classroom he had spent years prior made her angry and hurt. It almost felt like his dour and sarcastic energy had leeched into the walls over the years and now slowly seeped out to darken whoever sat within its walls day.

With her bag slung loosely over her shoulder, she shuffled into the classroom, threw her bag on the ground and sat down heavily on a stool. She was the first one here as usual and sat with her hands resting idly on the well-worn wooden table as she waited.

Soft footsteps followed her own not thirty seconds later, head turned to catch the gaze of Pansy Parkinson who stopped a few feet from her looked incredulously around the room and then slipped in beside Hermione without a second thought.

"What's going on, Granger?" She asked softly, throwing her own bag in the ground making it evident she had planned to sit beside her this lesson.

"What do you mean what's going on? She retorted back casting a darkened look.

"Well, one week you are the Headmasters plaything, and the next you had been cast aside as little more than a piece of trash."

Hermione snorted in response. "Ah, that. Well-"

"You wanted more than he did?" She asked in a hushed whisper looking pointedly at Hermione. "See, I knew he was gay!" She exclaimed and slammed her open palm hand on the surface of the table.

"Well, if you already knew, why did you ask?" He rolled her eyes harshly.

"Because I've heard dribs and drabs of what had happened, and it was just speculation up until now. Draco overheard Snape talking to McGonagall in the halls about it and it piqued my interest when he told me. I assumed Snape wanted you to warm his bed and satisfy his needs but it seems I was wrong on that front and for him to push you away after wanting to keep you close for safety either means he is trying to protect you or something in his plan went wayward and you are no longer needed to him anymore."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence there," She whispered darkly. "Why are you sitting with me anyway? Aren't you worried what your precious Draco and friends will think of you sitting with the filthy Mudblood?"

"Because," she lowered her voice a few octaves and looked around "I have it on good authority that Slughorn wouldn't be here today and the one person you want to avoid will be teaching us and I told you, I sort of think you are pretty cool and I admire you. I used to think you were just this weak, useless human who gushed over Harry Potter but now I see I was so far from the point, so the least I could do would be sitting here for some moral support during this time." She fished lazily in her bag for her quill. The soft whispers of startled students seeing the two girls sitting together civilly tore through the air.

Hermione's palms started sweating and a lump formed in her throat. She had tried her hardest to avoid him but now he had forced her into a well-laid trap. She knew deep down he would be doing it just to get a rise out of her and he knew that if he were to teach the class she could hardly run without causing a scene and dramatic scenes were something Hermione didn't like to start.

Severus stalked in with a scowl planted firmly on his face- as usual, and she felt her body tense harshly and her breath caught in her throat. Pansy gently nudged her foot with her own in a weird gesture of comfort she could only assume.

"Parkinson, Granger, you are working to-" He stopped and looked at them, head tilted in question. "Together," he continued to the front of the room utterly perplexed and unable to work out why they had already opted to sit beside one another. Interesting.

He noticed Hermione avoided looking at him as much as she could but for the split second her eyes met his and they locked for but a fleeting moment he saw the hate, loathing and disdain dancing deep in her orbs and he felt his fragile heart pang with guilt that he had caused it. He wasn't used to seeing hatred in her eyes and he didn't like it one tiny bit but again deep down her knew it was for the best and it was because he felt something deep down for the girl and maybe, perhaps, in different circumstances, something may have been able to flourish between them and he may have allowed himself a small sliver of happiness but as it stood now that wasn't possible without putting a giant target on her back if he hadn't already painted one on there for her yet.

And now he was left wondering since when did her and Parkinson become good enough friends to sit beside one another without being forced? Was there something at play here at was in merely an innocent friendship that had somehow formed the night they had detention together. Merlin knew Pansy could use Hermione for her own ill-gotten gains but on the other hand, Hermione wasn't stupid and could tell when someone wasn't being fully transparent. Maybe, just maybe, Pansy craved the attention of a level-headed female friend to help ground her and get her through these fucking shitty times.

"I want two feet of parchment on the long-term effects of the draught of the living dead. I also want a full ingredients list compiled within that parchment and I want it on my desk by the end of the lesson. And if you don't finish you can finish it tonight in detention with Filch," he snarled and sat down at the desk with arms folded tightly across his chest.

The soft ruffling of parchment sailed through the air and Hermione tried to focus but her mind kept wandering to him and what he had done to her. She willed herself to write but her eyes kept darting to the front of the room and each time his eyes were fixed solely on her and she hated it. What gave him the right to watch her when he didn't even want her? He had certainly left a bitter taste in her mouth and nothing would ever wash it out. She wouldn't say she loved Severus Snape, but she admired him. She liked him and for what it was worth she thought he was a decent human being when others didn't but perhaps she had been hoodwinked into thinking he was more than he really was.

She forced herself to look away and start writing feverishly to get it finished in the allotted time. The last thing she wanted was detention with Filch who would probably get his jollies off in handing her over to the Carrows on a silver platter.

She caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head just so to see him meandering around the classroom peering at each students parchment. She tried to swallow but her mouth was so dry it was impossible. She could feel him stop behind her before his shadow had cast over her and she stiffened. He lingered a little longer over her than he did any other student and he moved off without another word.

"Quill down," his voice rang through the otherwise silent classroom and Hermione placed her quill on the table, stretching her very cramped hand open and closed a few times.

"Please bring your parchments to the front and exit the room. Miss Granger, please stay behind to discuss your work," he said with an air of boredom not even looking up.

Her heart sank. Her palms sweated. She looked to Pansy and winced.

"You will be right, Granger. You've faced worse than that before." She smiled softly and threw her bag over her shoulder and sauntered out of the room without another word.

Once the last student had left Hermione stood, walked to the front of the room and slammed her parchment on the desk hard not even looking at him as she did so and then felt his hand clamp down on her own as she went to pull away. She looked down at her hands and then up slowly to him, she was hunched over the desk and the anger evident in her eyes as she tried to recoil once again but he was too strong.

"You've been avoiding me," his voice a low, ghostly whisper, eyes dancing with question holding her gaze steadfast.

"No fucking shit," she retorted through harshly gritted teeth, flames now dancing in her eyes and shooting daggers at him.

"What's going on with you and Parkinson?"

She pulled her gaze from his own, head turned sideways, curls cascading over her cheek obscuring the disgust that was evident on her face right now.

"What's it matter? Am I not allowed to have a single friend in this world, or do you want to take that one away from me too like you did the others?" She turned back to him and the hurt was evidently etched in the lines of her face and he couldn't but help feel that pang of guilt in his heart again.

"She's a Slytherin, Hermione," he warned sternly.

"And so are you and I trusted you. Maybe you are right. Maybe all Slytherins are terrible people." She shrugged her shoulders high.

"Hermione, I'm sorry. I never intended for any of this to happen. I never knew you would follow me; I didn't know we would be forced back here. I did not plan to drive a wedge through the friendship you held with Potter and Weasley and I certainly never intended to break your heart," his voice heavily laced with genuine sincerity.

"Oh, I see. That makes it all better again knowing that you never intended for it to happen or plan for it." She pulled her hands from his grip as hard as she could not wanting to be touched by him any longer.

"Hermione, it's complicated," he warned sternly pulling himself up to his full height from where he sat and towered over her vastly.

"How could it be complicated? In what world is a relationship complicated? In what universe is there a reason you need to push me away? I followed you to your home knowing full well my whole life was about to be turned upside down, but I still followed because I wanted to get to know you more. I trusted you. I figured that even with everything going on I was going to be protected by you. If that didn't speak volumes about how I was probably feeling at that time, then nothing will. And then, and then you kissed me, and I actually liked it and my brain started ticking over and I thought maybe there could be something between us. Perhaps, maybe we both could have had a little happiness but for some selfish reason you decided to push me away and you push me away when you know full well the Carrows are just one moment away from dragging me into an alcove and doing me in and you are doing nothing to help the situation at all and I am marked because of you. Because they want to get to you and take you down and if they didn't think that I meant nothing to you they would have just left me be. And even they got it wrong, but it is clear I am little more than an inconvenience in your life." She was shaking now from the anger coursing through her veins. Hot tears pricking her eyes she shook with red-hot anger.

"Hermione," he warned again. "It's complicated."

"You know what? I do not even want to know what is going through your head right now. I have to get to class and hope that the Carrows don't slit my throat on the way through seeing as I have to walk there alone because I had to hang around and argue with you." She tossed her hands madly in the air, collected her book bag and stalked from the classroom, not even three steps through the doorway she felt a hand around her wrist that pulled her unsteadily off her path. Stumbling a few steps with heart hammering in her chest, eyes wide she relaxed visibly when she saw it was only Pansy.

"How much did you hear?" Hermione asked gently, casting a look over her shoulder to make sure he hadn't followed.

"Everything. From start to finish. I'd say I didn't mean to pry, but I wanted to hear what went down and I figured we both had transfiguration together that we may as well be late together. And who knows who is lurking around the corners around here now. Safety in numbers I suppose." She shrugged, walking off and Hermione following behind.

"And you aren't worried your precious boyfriend Draco will be upset you are hanging around with me, a lowly Mudblood?"

"First off, he isn't my boyfriend. And secondly, I've told you, I don't care what they think anymore? I am my own person and if I want to talk to you, I will. I am over the toxic Slytherin culture and I need a way out of there or forever be tarred with that brush and it isn't who I am. Maybe in the earlier days, I was, or, at least my parents and inner circle wanted that but now I am older and not as impressionable I can see the wrong path I had been taking and now I want to right the wrongs and if that means ruffling a few feathers then so be it. You clearly need a friend so don't complain about my companionship."

Hermione couldn't help but smile slightly. Did she actually have a friend now in this school? She assumed so.

o-o-o-o-o

For fuck sake. Women would be the god damn death of him. He sat at his desk tapping his fingers lazily on the oak table staring off into the distance. Why couldn't the stupid chit see he was pushing her away from him to spare her from the horrors that could potentially befall her? Merlin fucking knew he wanted nothing more than to pull her close, press his lips to hers and fuck her well into the night but that wasn't going to happen.

Of course, his whole plan had gone wayward. There was no denying that. It was a simple plan really. Befriend the girl; check. Force her apart from her friends; done. Entice her to follow; accomplished. Use her for sex and then break her heart; err, he achieved half of that. But nowhere in his plan did he have fall for the girl.

He laid his head down on the desk. He didn't know what to do anymore.

** A/N: I am loving writing this story so much. I hope you are loving reading it also! I have written Pansy in as a plot point and slowly working towards where she needs to be.**

** -Aliasmel1**


	15. Chapter 15

"What's the deal with Parkinson and Granger?" Minerva asked Severus one morning as they sat eating breakfast in the hall.

His wide shoulders shrugged high and he only let out a grunt before realising that was presumably rude and he should use words instead of sounds.

"No idea. Rumour has it they are friends now, but it doesn't sit well with me. They have always loathed one another and now, well now they may as well be sharing a bloody bed, they spend so much time with one another. Every corner you turn, they are side by side and whispering amongst themselves," he practically spat. Jealousy gnawing deep in the pit of his stomach.

"Do you think Parkinson is up to something?" Minerva asked in a curious upward inflection, glancing sideways at Severus with mild surprise on her face. She knew the girl wasn't the upstanding pillar of the school, but she wasn't that awful.

"Well, do you think Parkinson is hanging around with her for the sake of being her friend? She is a Slytherin and Slytherins are cunning and it wouldn't surprise me if she has plans to lure Hermione into an alcove and into the waiting clutches of a Death Eater."

Minerva waved a hand lazily. "You are so dramatic, Severus. If I need to bring it to your attention. Perhaps Hermione was really pining for a friend. You pushed her so far from her two best friends that there is half a chance that they will never talk to her again. And then you pushed her even further away when she had some feelings for you, but Merlin knows why because you are the most self-centred Wizard I have ever had the misery of meeting."

"So harsh," He growled low in his throat. His attention now focused on the door as he watched Hermione walk in with Pansy flanked by her side. The two broke off and ended up at their respective tables.

Something didn't bore right with him and he felt it when he first saw the girls sitting together on their own accord in the potions classroom that day weeks prior. Pansy loathed Hermione with the fire of a thousand suns and would never throw away her reputation she had amassed within the Slytherin ranks. And she wouldn't do that now amid a mounting war that was so close to going off, so much so he could almost taste it.

Pansy would do nothing to disappoint her parents and befriend Hermione or someone of Hermione's kind. Whatever was going to happen, then Hermione would have to deal with it on her own because he would not help. He needed to cut her loose and not allow her to use him as a crutch when she felt things were overwhelming and she couldn't do them on her own. He was trying to be cruel, to be kind and totally squash any feelings she had for him, and it was all for her own safety and wellbeing. If only she could realise that.

He wanted her. Obviously, he wanted to hold her tight and tell her everything was all right. It was obvious he wanted to press his lips to hers again and taste her sweet lips against his own and tangle his hands in her hair. He wanted to make love to her, Merlin didn't he ever. But not now. Maybe if they came out of this unscathed and she didn't hate him for everything he had done to her.

He missed her lying beside her in bed each night. He yearned for the chats they had daily. Hell, he pined for her visits to his office every evening after classes.

He sucked in a deep breath and composed himself. Tearing his gaze from the girl he had grown so fond of and had spent many a night lying next to willing himself to make a move but not doing so because he didn't want her to have that giant target on her back that she was now more than likely putting on her own back hanging around Pansy.

Fuck, he missed her.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Severus spent the next week arguing with himself violently in his head. Something still wasn't sitting right, and the more he saw Hermione and Pansy together, the more he worried. He knew he had to distance himself, but he didn't want to see her hurt. He cared for her deeply, and she didn't deserve whatever trap Pansy was luring her into.

He had no evidence of that, so he couldn't exactly pull her aside and accuse her of what he thought she might do. No. It didn't work like that.

He lay awake at night as thoughts swirled in his head and he argued with himself over and over. What is Pansy really was Hermione's friend? But then again, what if she was playing Hermione like a finely tuned piano?

Did pansy really have it in her to act the best friend? She could manipulate people well, but this would have to be the longest he had ever seen her carry on with the charade of this measure before. Maybe she was genuine? Maybe she wasn't. He was going insane trying to work it out in his head.

He groaned low in his throat, rolled over, punched his pillow and closed his eyes. The side of the bed she once occupied a cold, desolate void he tried to keep his distance from. You know… Just in case she ever came back. He snorted. As if that would happen.

His gut told him to leave her to her own devices, but his heart told him to intervene somehow and help her along the way. He didn't want to see her hurt, and he never meant for any of this to drag out for as long as it had. He never meant to drag her to the school and put her in the predicament he did.

Fuck. He was only meant to gain her trust, turn her against her friends, fuck her a few times, rope her into falling in love with him and then drop her like a tonne of bricks. No feelings. No strings. And now he was here, unable to sleep every night whilst he battled with head and heart on what he should do.

He needed her.

o-o-o-o-o

It was odd yet endearing that Pansy was a great friend. She was the female friend Hermione always yearned for but never had. She was smart. She could hold a conversation longer than Ron or Harry ever could, and she was engaging. She never spoke ill of Hermione and never made her to feel less than a best friend.

The two girls would walk the halls together, they took most of their classes together and they spent their weekends together huddled up in the hall chatting or helping one another with homework. She really was the distraction Hermione needed.

There had been a handful of occasions where Draco had made a few snide passing comments that were quashed by Pansy. Draco seemed intimidated by Pansy, and she wondered why. Perhaps she was too strong of a female and that scared Draco slightly. Or perhaps she held something over him, and he knew better than to push his luck.

They would talk about anything and everything, and Hermione's only regret was she never befriended the girl sooner. She was fun. She was kind despite the tough exterior, and she was Hermione's best and only friend right now and that counted for everything.

They confided in one another and they would often talk about Snape and how he was letting a good thing go when he wiped his hands clean of her. They came up with varying theories about why he was such a douche and why he had treated her the way he had. It mostly came back to abandonment issues as a child and fear of intimacy that stemmed from that.

Every morning without fail Hermione would make her way to the hall and Pansy would wait for her at the foot of the stairs. But this morning she hadn't even made it down the stairs. She did not even make it two steps from the portrait before he had rounded on her. She noticed his eyes tired and heavy, and perhaps he had been lacking sleep.

"My office. Now." He was short with her and the anger in his tone had her wondering exactly what she had done wrong? She was minding her own business lately, and she liked it. It was for the better, and she didn't need him in her life. She could quite look after herself, thank you very much. The Carrow's hadn't even looked at her sideways since Snape had distanced himself from her, and she was thankful for that.

She followed him begrudgingly, trotting behind him, taking two steps to his one. Breathless, she was glad when they finally made it.

She folded her arms tightly across her chest and glared at him with contempt in her eyes. She hated him. She hated him for everything he had done, but she hated him mostly for pushing her away, and that sour taste still sat in her mouth.

"Well?" She snapped; a single brow raised in question.

"Drop the attitude, Hermione." He almost glided across the room and sat behind his desk, steepling his fingers.

She noticed the bags under his eyes were more so worse than they had been of late and she wondered if she was getting any sleep at all.

"I don't have an attitude Severus; I just have a low tolerance for you."

"I've noticed you and Pansy getting closer as the weeks draw on." His face was stoic. Eyes trained on her and her only.

"And that's a problem?" She sniffed indignantly.

"It is when I know where she comes from and what she is like. It would be privy of you to not keep the company of such a person because of the possibility of ulterior motives."

She closed the distance between them, her eyes never leaving his own gaze. She slammed her open palms down on his desk, never breaking eye contact.

"Do you want to take her away from me too, Severus?" Her voice whisper quiet and almost emotionless. "Do you want me to be alone with no one? Is that your plan? Or are you jealous of her?"

"Hermione." He tried to level with her. "I'm just telling you to use caution. Sometimes the devil could be in plain sight."

She sniffed. "Yeah. I'm looking at him. I trusted him, and maybe even I had feelings for him. So, take your higher than thou complex and leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you anymore and I don't need your help. I no longer want to be the pawn in whatever sick little game you are playing in your head, and I no longer wish to be part of your life any longer."

She turned on her heel, threw her wild curls over her shoulder and left without even a second glance back at him.

He stood and did nothing. He stood and watched as she left. He stood and let him loathe himself just that little more. He pulled back his arm, angling his hand, and with all his force he punched the hard-wooden table with all his might and certain he had broken his hand. He didn't care. He wanted to feed something.

He fucked up.

**A/N: Just a little filler chapter so I can get to where I need to get in the quickest time possible without dragging this on longer than it needs to. Hope you are enjoying my story so far.**

**-Aliasmel**


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